Unification Minister Lee In-young on Wednesday visited an estuary of the Han River near the border with North Korea and urged Pyongyang to respond to Seoul's call for dialogue to jointly use the waterway as agreed earlier. Under a military agreement signed at a 2018 summit between President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, the two sides agreed on the joint use of the estuary along their western border and conducted joint waterway research in November that year. The project, how

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has vowed to build a powerful military to strengthen war deterrence, but insisted that the country’s main enemy is “war itself,” and not South Korea or the US. 　 Kim made the remarks Monday as he gave a rare speech at a defense development exhibition to mark the previous day’s 76th founding anniversary of the ruling Workers’ Party, the North’s official Korea Central News Agency said Tuesday. 　 It was the first time the North

The South Korean government proposed Tuesday North Korea resume inter-Korean dialogue in order to narrow differences and promote mutual understanding after its leader accused Seoul of being "hypocritical" and having "double standards." In a speech Monday at a defense development exhibition to mark the 76th founding anniversary of the ruling Workers' Party, the North's leader Kim Jong-un condemned Seoul for continuing efforts to boost its military capabilities while talking p

North Korean defector-turned-lawmaker said Monday that South Korea should step up efforts to improve the human rights situation in North Korea, along with its proposal to declare the formal end to the Korean War. Rep. Tae Young-ho of the main opposition People Power Party made the remark during an interview with Yonhap News Agency while in New York for a parliamentary audit of the South Korean Embassy to the United Nations. "We shouldn't lean toward the left or the right for the North Korea

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has called for boosting the country's military capabilities to counter what he called "hostile forces" against Pyongyang but said the move is not aimed at a war against South Korea or the United States. Kim made the remarks Monday in a speech at a defense development exhibition to mark the 76th founding anniversary of the ruling Workers' Party, criticizing Seoul and Washington over their combined military exercises and weapons development. "The Un

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un urged his party officials to improve people’s lives in the next five years amid a growing economic crisis aggravated by the coronavirus pandemic, the official Korean Central News Agency said Monday. “As set forth in the January congress, the five-year plan has to improve the living conditions, bring about a fundamental change and buttress a socialist utopia the world envies,” Kim said as he marked the anniversary of the regime’s ruling pa

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un stressed the need to improve people's living conditions, as he held a lecture to mark the 76th founding anniversary of its ruling Workers' Party, state media said Monday. He delivered the message during his "important" speech, titled, "Let us further improve party work in line with the demands of the period of fresh development of socialist construction," according to the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). Kim said the party has defi

North Korea is accelerating the drive to construct new apartment buildings in its capital city, state media showed Sunday, as it aims to provide 10,000 new homes within this year and 40,000 more by 2025. North Korea has cleared tens of thousands of square meters of land in the western Pyongyang area of Mangyongdae to build more homes, according to its official Rodong Sinmun newspaper and Uriminzokkiri, a propaganda website. North Korea claims Mangyongdae is the birthplace of Kim Il-sung, its

The COVID-19 medical supplies sent by the World Health Organization and other UN agencies have reached the North Korean port of Nampo, an apparent signal that the reclusive regime is easing its strict border lockdown and welcoming outside help.  A few months ago, the WHO and other UN agencies were informed by North Korea’s Public Health Ministry that it would allow items stranded in China since the onset of the pandemic to be transported to the North through the seaport Dalian, acco

Unification Minister Lee In-young stressed the need for the Korean-version New Deal project to expand to cross-border cooperation with North Korea, while speaking online with Jim Rogers, a well-known investor, according to the ministry Friday. During a conversation with Rogers the previous day, the minister said that the so-called Peace New Deal will serve as a new growth engine for the South Korean economy. "The minister said that ... if economic cooperation between the two Koreas develops

North Korea has been advancing its nuclear and missile capabilities over the past decades, and time is running out to prevent the country from becoming a full-fledged nuclear state, experts said Thursday.  Pointing out that past South Korean and US administrations had failed to dismantle the regime’s nuclear program, experts attending a Korea Institute for National Unification seminar called for “creative solutions.”  “One of the reasons why North Korea&rsquo

The unification ministry said Thursday that it has approved three requests by civilian organizations to provide humanitarian assistance to North Korea, which are meant to help bolster cross-border cooperation and exchanges. The decision was announced amid cautious optimism about the resumption of dialogue created after North Korea restored all communication lines with South Korea early this week following about two months of suspension attributable to Pyongyang's protest over a joint military e

The World Health Organization (WHO) said that it has begun the shipment of COVID-19 medical supplies to North Korea through the Chinese port of Dalian, raising the possibility that the North might be easing its long-enforced tight border controls amid the global pandemic. North Korea has tightened border controls since the outbreak of the coronavirus in China, which has meant key materials and medical supplies could not be shipped to the North. The North closed off a major shipping route linkin

South Korean Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong stressed the need to declare an official end to the Korean War in his talks with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, amid recent signs of potential discrepancies between Seoul and Washington in their approaches to Pyongyang. 　 The two envoys held a pull-aside meeting Tuesday on the margins of a meeting of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris. 　 Chung told Blinken that President Moon Jae-in’s recent proposal to

Most of North Korea’s naval drills involving submarines in the past seven years took place in 2018, when the two Koreas held talks three times to defuse tensions, Rep. Han Ki-ho of the opposition People Power Party said Tuesday, citing the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The military found that the North deployed its submarines to rehearse attacks on the South about 150 times in 2018, the highest number since 2014, when such drills took place about 120 times. Excluding 2018 from 2015 to 2019, Pyon