North Korea Abandons Unification Efforts With 'Principal Enemy' South Korea

North Korea Abandons Unification Efforts, With ‘Principal Enemy’ South Korea. On Jan. 16, Kim Jong Un called for his country's constitution to be rewritten to define its southern neighbor as North Korea's "primary foe and invariable principal enemy," NBC News reports. North Korea's government agencies tasked with maintaining relations with South Korea were also abolished. Additionally, Kim ordered to "completely eliminate such concepts as ‘reunification,’ ‘reconciliation’ and ‘fellow countrymen’ from the national history of our republic." The actions abandon a decades-long attempt at unification between the two countries. It is the final conclusion drawn from the bitter history of the inter-Korean relations that we cannot go along the road of national restoration and reunification together. Kim Jong Un, via statement. Kim cited the trilateral cooperation of South Korea, Japan and the U.S. for making the Korean Peninsula a "war-risk zone," NBC News reports.

He went on to say that nuclear activity in the area would terminate South Korea and usher "unimaginable disaster and defeat to the United States.". South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said, "Should North Korea provoke us, we will punish them multiple times as hard," according to 'The Korea Times.' Yoon added that North Korea's "fake peace tactic that threatened us to choose between ‘war’ and ‘peace’ no longer works."