Unification Minister Kim Yung-ho met with global experts on issues of the Korean Peninsula on Wednesday to collect their opinions for Seoul’s efforts to draw up a new unification vision, his office said.

Kim held a roundtable discussion session with nine experts from eight countries, including the United States, Japan, China and Russia, as the government is seeking to earn international support for a new unification vision that will be created based on liberal democracy.

The minister called on North Korea to stop its “irrational” provocations, as illustrated by its sending of trash-carrying balloons to South Korea, and come to the dialogue table.

“At a time when North Korea is walking on the wrong path, it would be a historic task for the two Koreas to carry out a peaceful unification in a bid to promote peace and stability on the peninsula and in the international community, and improve human rights situations of North Koreans,” Kim said.

The meeting came as North Korean leader Kim Jong-un defined inter
-Korean relations as those between “two countries hostile to each other,” and vowed not to seek reconciliation and unification with South Korea.

Among the experts attending the Wednesday meeting, Andrei Lankov, a professor at Kookmin University, stressed that the purpose of the unification vision should be focused on the pursuit of “peace and coexistence.”

Michael Breen, CEO of Insight Communication Consultants, a public relations company, said it is important for South Korea to review its vision for unification though it would not be easy to unify with a dictatorship country with no shared values.

“I think Korea can articulate a vision of a democratic peaceful free market, harmonious Northeast Asia as a context where it exists and you use every opportunity to nudge other countries along in that direction,” he said.

South and North Korea remain technically at war as the 1950-53 Korean War ended with a ceasefire, not a peace treaty.

Source: Yonhap News Agency