South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol Opens Ways To Embrace North Korea Asal Pyongyang Takes Denuclearization Steps

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol. (Wikimedia Commons/DEMA/Lee Kyung Won)

JAKARTA - South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on Thursday offered to form a working-level consulting body with North Korea, to discuss ways to ease tensions and continue economic cooperation, as he explained his vision of unification.

In a speech on National Liberation Day marking the 79th anniversary of independence from Japanese colonialism in 1910-45 after the Second World War, President Yoon said he was ready to start political and economic cooperation, if North Korea "takes just one step" towards denuclearization.

President Yoon used the speech as an opportunity to unveil a blueprint for unification and take a new approach to Pyongyang, following his recent government's offer to provide aid supplies for flood damage in isolated North Korea which he said had been rejected.

President Yoon said the launch of "inter-Korean working groups" could help ease tensions and address various issues, from economic cooperation to inter-community exchanges to family reunions separated by the 1950-53 Korean War.

"We will start political and economic cooperation as North Korea takes one step towards denuclearization," he said at a ceremony in Seoul.

"Dialogue and cooperation can result in substantive progress in inter-Korean relations," he continued.

President Yoon in his speech, also put forward ideas about plans to launch an international conference on North Korea's human rights and funds to raise global awareness of the matter, support activist groups, and expand North Korea's access to outside information.

"It is important to help make the people of North Korea aware of the value of freedom," he said, calling for freedom in the South to be extended to "North frozen empire."

"If more and more North Koreans realize unification through freedom is the only way to improve their lives and believe the united Republic of Korea will embrace them, they will become a strong and friendly force for freedom-based unification," he said.

However, united Korea seems to be a distant prospect for most people on both sides of the border. The relationship between the two neighboring countries was at its lowest point in decades, as Pyongung raced to enhance its nuclear and missile capabilities and took steps to cut ties with South Korea, redefining it as a separate and hostile enemy nation.

At the beginning of the year, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called South Korea a "major enemy" and said unification was unlikely.