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| 2024-05-20 11:49:36
unification minister-N Korea
N. Korea changes name of key party organ in charge of inter-Korean affairs
By Kim Soo-yeon and Kim Han-joo
SEOUL, May 20 (Yonhap) -- North Korea has changed the name of a key party organization in charge of inter-Korean affairs, and the entity is dealing with psychological warfare amid the North's animosity toward South Korea, Unification Minister Kim Yung-ho said Monday.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un defined inter-Korean relations as those "between two states hostile to each other" at a year-end plenary meeting of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea (WPK).
"North Korea has yet to make an official announcement, but the North has changed the name of the United Front Department (UFD) into the WPK Central Committee Bureau 10," Kim told reporters, saying the organization is carrying out psychological warfare-centered functions.
The UFD had dealt with inter-Korean talks and North Korea's policy with South Korea, serving as a counterpart to Seoul's unification ministry. At the party meeting, the North's leader ordered officials to disband agencies dealing with inter-Korean affairs.
"Kim Jong-un's move to erase the legacy of his predecessors effectively points to the attempt to degrade (the late national founder) Kim Il-sung and (his late father) Kim Jong-il. We cannot rule out the possibility that this would cause ideological chaos internally in the North," Kim said.
Meanwhile, Kim said he and Julie Turner, the U.S. special envoy for North Korean human rights, are scheduled to visit the island of Seonyu on Friday, where South Korean teens were abducted by the North in the 1970s.
Five South Korean high school students were kidnapped by North Korea on the Seonyu and Hong islands, off the country's southwest coast, between 1977 and 1978.
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