South Korea says willing to establish talks with North Korea

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on Thursday called for a working-level consultative body with North Korea to alleviate tensions between the neighbors and resume economic cooperation.

The new inter-Korean working group "could take up any issue ranging from relieving tensions to economic cooperation, people-to-people and cultural exchanges, and disaster and climate-change responses," Yoon said in an address on Thursday.

The South Korean leader said he was ready to begin political and economic cooperation if Pyongyang "takes just one step" toward denuclearization.

"Dialogue and cooperation can bring about substantive progress in inter-Korean relations," Yoon said.

Blueprint for unification

Yoon also outlined his "unification vision" during a speech at an event celebrating the country's liberation from Japanese colonial rule. Korea divided into two countries at the end of World War II.

"As long as the state of division persists, our liberation will remain incomplete," Yoon said. "The freedom we enjoy must be extended to the frozen kingdom of the North, where people are deprived of freedom and suffer from poverty and starvation."

The new outreach efforts also come after Seoul offered to provide relief supplies for the destruction caused by floods in the isolated North, which Yoon said had been declined.

"Even though the North Korean regime rejected our offer (to provide flood relief supplies) yet again, we will never stop making offers of humanitarian aid," Yoon said.

Relations between the two Koreas in poor state

Relations between Seoul and Pyongyang are at their lowest in years.

Earlier this year, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un called South Korea a "primary foe" and said unification was no longer possible.

North Korea announced the deployment of 250 ballistic missile launchers to its southern border last week.

The North has flown thousands of trash-filled balloons southward since May.

In response, Seoul has resumed its propaganda broadcasts along the border and halted a 2018 deal aimed at easing tensions between the two militaries.

dvv/rm (AFP, Reuters)