North Korea set to revise constitution, dropping unification clauses

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North Korea set to revise constitution, dropping unification clauses

Published: 07 Oct. 2024, 10:06

Screen capture from Rodong Sinmun shows North Korean leader Kim Jong-un speaking at a Supreme People's Assembly meeting held on Jan. 15. [SCREEN CAPTURE]

North Korea is poised to convene a key parliamentary meeting Monday to revise its constitution in a bid to remove unification-related clauses and clarify the country's territorial boundaries, including the maritime border.

North Korea earlier announced its plan to hold the 11th session of the 14th Supreme People's Assembly (SPA) Monday, about nine months after its leader Kim Jong-un called for the constitutional revision to define South Korea as its "invariable principal enemy."

North Korean state media did not report whether the SPA session kicked off. The outcome of the Monday session will be made public the next day, with the possibility that the SPA session could last for at least two days.

The meeting comes as Kim defined inter-Korean relations as those between "two states hostile to each other" and vowed not to seek reconciliation and unification with South Korea at a year-end party meeting in December.

In an SPA meeting in January, the North's leader called for amending the constitution at the next parliamentary session in a way that removes unification-related clauses and stipulates the nation's territorial boundaries, including the maritime border.

South Korea's unification ministry said last week that North Korea could ambiguously state the maritime border without specifying its location, leaving room for legislative steps to disclose 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 stage provocations.

At the SPA session, North Korea is likely to remove references to unification, shared ethnicity and race, as well as codify its commitment to subjugate South Korean territory in the event of war, as previously ordered by Kim.

Seoul's unification ministry said North Korea may scrap inter-Korean agreements in the political and military fields, including the 1991 Basic Agreement.

Under the 1991 agreement, inter-Korean ties are defined as a "special relationship" tentatively formed in the process of seeking reunification, not as state-to-state relations. The main premise of the agreement runs counter to Kim's "two hostile states" stance.

North Korea also could use the SPA meeting to ratify its new partnership treaty with Russia. At summit talks in Pyongyang in June, Kim and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the treaty that includes a mutual defense clause amid deepening military cooperation between the two nations.

The SPA is the highest organ of state power under the North's constitution, but it actually only rubber-stamps decisions by the ruling Workers' Party.

Since adopting its socialist constitution in 1972, North Korea has amended it 10 times, with the last revision occurring in September of last year.

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."

Yonhap