North Korea as peacemaker?
Changes to its constitution indicate that it recognizes South Korea as a separate country, and might also like to be treated as a normal state.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, accompanied by his daughter Kim Ju Ae and military officers, oversee test launches of a ballistic missile, April 19.
KCNA via REUTERS
North Korea has closely watched Russia鈥檚 failure to conquer Ukraine along with Iran鈥檚 calamitous missteps in trying to dominate the Middle East with proxy militias. This week, news broke that the regime in Pyongyang might have learned a lesson about avoiding such misguided aggression.
After more than seven decades of threatening to use force to reunify with South Korea, it officially gave up claims on its neighbor on the Korean Peninsula. It rewrote its constitution to remove an obligation to 鈥渞ealize the reunification of the fatherland鈥� and the ethnic Korean people.
This does not mean Seoul and its American ally can now stand down their defensive forces against the North鈥檚 nuclear arsenal. Nor has South Korea given up hope of peaceful reunification. But the constitutional change, which was first signaled in 2023, suggests a warming of what has been a long, cold peace.
To add to a possible new normal, a North Korean women鈥檚 soccer team will travel to Seoul to compete against a South Korean team, the first such match in years. The May 20 tournament, held by the Asian Football Confederation, means the two nations must coordinate on security and other arrangements.
Under its new policy, North Korea frames the match as between separate countries. In general, it describes relations as 鈥渢wo hostile states,鈥� perhaps a recognition that the two are only technically at war after a 1950-53 conflict that ended in an armistice.
Despite that, the constitutional change 鈥渕ay provide part of the institutional groundwork for peaceful coexistence between the two Koreas,鈥� Lee Jung-chul, a North Korea expert at Seoul National University, told The Korea Herald.
Other changes hint that the country鈥檚 leader, Kim Jong Un, might now realize that North Korea 鈥� and its largely closed economy 鈥� must be more open. 鈥淭his fits in the context of a prolonged effort to redefine North Korea as a 鈥榥ormal state鈥� just like any other,鈥� Christopher Green of the International Crisis Group, told the Financial Times.
The previous normal 鈥� preparing to break through the borders of another country 鈥� has lately not worked well for a few other countries.
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