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| 2024-10-02 14:34:44
(LEAD) N Korea-parliamentary meeting
(LEAD) N. Korea likely to scrap key inter-Korean agreement at next week's parliamentary meeting: Seoul
(ATTN: UPDATES with more details throughout)
By Kim Soo-yeon
SEOUL, Oct. 2 (Yonhap) -- North Korea is likely to scrap a landmark inter-Korean agreement signed in 1991 at next week's key parliamentary meeting, as its leader Kim Jong-un has called for revising the constitution to define South Korea as its primary foe, the unification ministry said Wednesday.
North Korea will convene the 11th session of the 14th Supreme People's Assembly (SPA) on Monday to revise the constitution, nine months after Kim called for removing unification-related clauses and clarifying the nation's territorial boundaries, including the maritime border.
At a year-end party meeting in December, he defined inter-Korean ties as relations between "two states hostile to each other" and vowed not to regard the South as a counterpart for reconciliation and unification.
South Korea's unification ministry said North Korea is likely to scrap inter-Korean agreements in the political and military fields, including the Basic Agreement of South and North Korea. In February, the North renounced economic-related agreements with the South.
Under the agreement signed in 1991, inter-Korean ties are defined as a "special relationship" tentatively formed in the process of seeking reunification, not as state-to-state relations. The accord runs counter to Kim's "two hostile states" stance.
In regard to the constitutional revision, North Korea may not immediately disclose the details, given that the nation has revealed the preamble to an amended constitution with a time lag in the past, according to a ministry official.
On the maritime border, the ministry said North Korea could ambiguously state it without specifying its location and take legislative steps later to disclose its details.
Experts said North Korea could unilaterally declare a new maritime border south of the current de facto sea border, known as the Northern Limit Line (NLL), in a bid to use it as an excuse to undertake provocations.
North Korea has long demanded the NLL be moved farther south as it was unilaterally drawn by the U.S.-led U.N. Command after the 1950-53 Korean War.
Instead of the NLL, North Korea has so far insisted on its own version of the maritime demarcation lines that are drawn farther south than the NLL.
The ministry also said North Korea could carry out an organizational revamp or personnel reshuffle to enable the foreign ministry to take over inter-Korean affairs.
North Korea changed the name of the United Front Department, a key organ in charge of inter-Korean affairs at the ruling Workers' Party, into Bureau 10, in line with Kim's order to disband agencies dealing with affairs with the South.
"North Korea will push to institutionalize its 'two hostile states' stance and seek to create security uneasiness in our society, as well as raise tensions on the Korean Peninsula with measures related to the territorial clause," the ministry said.
The recalcitrant regime is expected to use the upcoming SPA meeting as a venue to send a message targeting Washington over its nuclear weapons ahead of the U.S. presidential election in November, according to the unification ministry.
"North Korea is likely to stress that it is obviously a nuclear state or it could say that the Korean Peninsula is an area of territorial dispute and inter-Korean relations are severed," a ministry official told reporters.
Last month, North Korea publicly disclosed a uranium enrichment facility for the first time in an apparent move to show that North Korea's denuclearization is an elusive goal for the U.S. and South Korea.
In 2023, the North stipulated the policy of strengthening its nuclear force in the constitution, with repeated claims that its status as a nuclear state is "irreversible."
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