South Korea unification ministry to get tougher on North

North and South Korea on Thursday marked the 70th anniversary of the armistice that brought the three-year Korean War to an end, although the open hostility between the two sides is still apparent today.

And recent changes in Seoul, implemented by the conservative administration of President Yoon Suk-yeol, only emphasize the widening chasm between North and South.

Yoon's nomination for the new head of the unification ministry, Kim Yung-ho, is a conservative academic who has stated in the past that the nation needs to take a far firmer line with Pyongyang, particularly when it comes to the North's record on human rights violations.  

The ministry coordinates South Korea's policy towards the North and sets rules for cooperation. 

Speaking to reporters shortly before his confirmation hearings commenced, Kim said Seoul should "selectively" review whether it should continue to adhere to agreements made with North Korea under previous left-leaning governments. He added that Seoul's responses should be contingent on the North's behavior. 

A new course for the unification ministry

Speaking at a hearing on July 21, Kim criticized recent missile launches by the North.

"North Korea has repaid our goodwill for the peace of the Korean Peninsula and the future of our people with reckless provocations and threats and has taken numerous inter-Korean agreements back to square one," he said, according to South Korea's Yonhap News.

"We need to maintain our principles against North Korea's provocations and respond in a stern manner," he added.

Kim is widely expected to secure the top office in the unification policy. He has indicated plans to take the ministry in a different direction.

"There should be a change in the role of the unification ministry," he said. "It needs to pursue policy in a principled and values-based way."

Kim's outlook tallies neatly with that of President Yoon, who has taken a far tougher line against the regime of Kim Jong Un in Pyongyang than his immediate predecessor, Moon Jae-in. 

Yoon, who has stated that the ministry has been operating "like a support agency for North Korea," said he wants it to reorientate its objectives to move towards freedom and democracy for the citizens of the North.  

A much-revamped unification ministry is expected to focus greater effort on monitoring and cataloguing human rights abuses in the North and analyzing political trends and devising effective responses from the government in South Korea.  

Dialing up pressure on Pyongyang

A structural shake-up of the ministry will also see it downsized from its present complement of 616 full-time staff, and it has even been suggested that it may lose its status as an independent ministry and be incorporated into the Foreign Ministry as an agency. 

One division that is likely to be axed is the Kaesong Industrial District Foundation, which was charged with overseeing South Korean companies that had operations within the Kaesong Industrial Complex, a joint North-South manufacturing hub that was set up just over the border in North Korea in 2002 as a confidence-building measure.

The South Korean government withdrew from the venture after the North fired a rocket in 2016. In June 2020, with relations at a low ebb, North Korea blew up the inter-Korean liaison office at the site.  

"Yoon is very much of the opinion that all exchanges should benefit the real interests of the two Koreas and instead of simply supporting the North Korean government," said Park Jung-won, a professor of international law at Dankook University.  

"The ministry should be securing benefits in return, such as improvements in the North's human rights record and meetings between families who have been divided since the end of the Korean War in 1953," he told DW.

"He believes the previous government misused the ministry as it only supplied assistance to the North Korean regime and never received anything in return, such as moves towards denuclearization," Park added.

Stalemate since Trump-Kim summit in Hanoi

Park points out that the ministry effectively has had little to do since the Hanoi summit of February 2019, which collapsed when former US President Donald Trump walked out after Kim sought to have all UN sanctions on his regime lifted.

Since then, Park said, the North has refused to communicate with the South, even in response to requests from the progressive government of former South Korean President Moon.  

Kim Sang-woo, a former politician with the left-leaning South Korean Congress for New Politics, and now a member of the board of the Kim Dae-jung Peace Foundation, said President Yoon has become "frustrated" that previous governments have been accommodating towards the North, but have seen no positive returns.  

"Since Hanoi, the unification ministry has effectively been a dead shop," he said. "And if it does not have a role to play, then Yoon will reduce its role, even possibly to the point that it is subjugated into the Foreign Ministry as an agency."

The relationship between the two sides has continued to deteriorate in recent years. Amid growing tensions, former politician Kim is not convinced that an aggressive stance on the North's human rights record will be beneficial.

"I believe in moderation and balance, but Yoon is more conservative and has made it clear that he is open to talks if the North comes in good faith, but if not, then he is not going to beg for talks," he said. "It really all does depend on the North."

Edited by: Wesley Rahn