Kim Jong-un urges constitutional change to define South as 'No. 1 hostile country'

In this photo released by Pyongyang's official Rodong Sinmun on Tuesday, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un addresses the 10th session of the 14th Supreme People's Assembly in Pyongyang the previous day. [NEWS1]

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has called for constitutional amendments defining South Korea as the North's “No. 1 hostile country” and committing the regime to “completely occupying” South Korean territory should armed hostilities break out, Pyongyang's state media reported Tuesday.

The report on Kim’s speech came a few hours before Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russian President Vladimir Putin is scheduled to meet visiting North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui in Moscow later on Tuesday, following her talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

According to the state-controlled Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), Kim on Monday called on the Supreme People’s Assembly — the regime’s rubber-stamp legislature — to revise the constitutional definition of South Korea so that North Koreans “firmly regard the Republic of Korea thoroughly as the No. 1 hostile country and unchanging principal enemy,” referring to South Korea by its official name.

“In the event of war on the Korean Peninsula, it is important to take into account the issue of completely occupying, suppressing, reclaiming the Republic of Korea and subjugating it into the territory of the republic,” Kim said.

Kim’s speech to the parliament, which ordinarily passes legislation on decisions already made by the ruling Workers’ Party, came over two weeks after he characterized ties between South and North Korea as those of “two hostile countries in a state of war” at a year-end meeting of the party.

The North has also decided to abolish multiple agencies ostensibly designed to pursue inter-Korean dialogue and cooperation, with Kim ordering the physical removal of “remnants” and infrastructural links created as part of past inter-Korean cooperation projects during his Monday speech.

“We need to undertake thorough measures to completely separate all connections between the two Koreas along the border and permanently cut off the North Korean side of the Gyeongui land link,” he said, referring to the road and rail links built by South Korea under the so-called Sunshine Policy of past liberal administrations in Seoul.

According to the KCNA, Kim also ordered the demolition of the Arch of Reunification, a 100-foot-tall arch consisting of two sculptures of Korean women holding a bronze map of the peninsula over a highway that links Pyongyang with the southern border city of Kaesong.

The monument, completed in 2001, is dedicated to regime founder Kim Il-sung’s Three-Point Charter for National Reunification, a plan that calls for the peaceful unification of the Koreas through a federal union that preserves their existing political systems.

While Kim repeated his previous statement that his regime would not unilaterally start a war nor avoid one if provoked, he also noted that Pyongyang would not recognize the Northern Limit Line (NLL), the de facto inter-Korean maritime border, and warned that a South Korean “invasion” of North Korean territory “by even 0.001 millimeters” would be regarded as casus belli.

The North fired hundreds of artillery rounds into the Yellow Sea near the NLL from Jan. 5 to 7, leading the South Korean military to respond with live-fire exercises of its own.

Kim threatened that a war “will terribly annihilate” and “end” South Korea while also warning the United States “will suffer unimaginable disasters and defeats” if it becomes involved in a conflict on the Korean Peninsula.

Kim’s escalating verbal offensive against South Korea comes as his regime has moved closer to Russia.

The North Korean leader met with the Russian president in a rare summit in September in the Russian Far East, where they pledged to heighten cooperation.

Lavrov, who is due to brief Putin on the implementation of the two leaders’ agreement on Tuesday, has blamed escalating tensions on the Korean Peninsula on U.S. actions.

Seoul’s Unification Ministry on Tuesday said it would respond “strongly and decisively” to what it characterized as Kim’s efforts to “misdirect inter-Korean relations with hostility and force” and warned the North “it cannot obtain security, economic growth or regime stability through nuclear and missile threats.”

The ministry also drew a distinction between the regime and its people as it vowed to continue working to improve the human rights situation in the North.

“It is the North Korean regime that threatens us, not the North Korean people,” the ministry said, adding, “We will continue to work with the international community to help North Koreans enjoy freedom, human rights, and prosperity as we do.”

BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]