Commercial satellite imagery shows that new construction worker huts have appeared in multiple areas over the last few months, and grading work has begun on new roads throughout the site. Work has also begun to repair and expand existing piers. 

The work is being completed alongside expansion of other naval bases throughout the country, reflecting state-led interest in bolstering the country’s naval facilities and capabilities.  Additional activity has been observed at Nampho Naval Shipyard and naval base on the country’s west coast, and new construction is starting to transform nearby Sok Island where North Korea has underwater ports. 

Tapchon 

Tapchon sits close to the existing Munchon Naval Base  in the north end of Wonsan Bay, which is geographically advantageous and provides a  natural defense from the sea to the west of North Korea. 

The site housed several hovercraft bases until 2013; however, in 2014, work began to change the waterfront. In 2018, Kim Jong Un directed the area to be built into a large fishing port. As such, a railway link was added and new piers were constructed, including marine railways for pulling fishing boats out of the water for maintenance. 

However, that plan did not last long. Already in 2020, some of the marine railways were dismantled. Four years later Kim Jong Un returned with plans to build a new naval base on this site instead, apparently with some urgency. 

State media reported him explaining: “Now that we are soon to possess large surface warships and submarines which cannot be anchored by the existing facilities for mooring warships, the construction of a naval base for running the latest large warships has become a pressing task.” 

It further explained, And he said that it is an urgent task in the era to build a modern port city as a symbol of the naval force of the DPRK and a center of the naval operational command and culture of the Navy.” 

Since then, the area has appeared hardly touched and work only now appears to be getting underway. 

The delay suggests that the state’s considerable construction initiatives might be stretched or delayed by multiple high-profile projects taking place across the country. At present, other projects such as the 20×10 regional development plan, which adds factories, hospitals, and lifestyle facilities to 20 counties each year, and efforts to build g a new neighborhood to Pyongyang, along with smaller projects, may be straining the country’s attention and resources.   

Delays in apparently high-profile projects have been relatively common in the past. The Wonsan-Kalma Beach Resort and Pyongyang General Hospital both sat half-finished for several years with delayed opening ceremonies; a large upgrade of the Sohae Satellite Launch Center appears to be similarly stalled. 

Construction Resumes 

The first signs that work might be restarting came in July when huts characteristic of housing for construction workers began appearing at the site. Since then, the ground has been cleared and leveled, and grading work has started on new roads across the site. 

Repairs on some of the piers at the site also commenced, and at least one new pier or launch way appears to be under construction. The existing piers were built years ago when Tapchon was meant to be a new fishing village. 

A large unfinished building that sat near the ends of the northernmost piers and was also a part of the fishing port project has been removed. 

Road grading across the site suggests the area’s footprint will be considerably larger than the current cleared area. The routes of several new roads run up to pockets of housing and stop, continuing on the other side. This suggests the housing are likely to be demolished to make way for the road. 

Munchon Naval Base Stalled 

In April 2024, about six months before Kim Jong Un visited Tapchon, significant construction work began on the nearby Munchon Naval Base.  

However, since our last report, construction has stalled completely. A number of new buildings remain incomplete, and while there appear to be some construction machinery on site, no significant work is being done. 

Nampho Expansion 

On the opposite coast, work is underway to expand the Nampho Naval Shipyard, where the navy has already constructed and launched one of its “new-type multi-mission destroyers” of the Choe Hyon class. 

Specifically, a large new hall is under construction. It appears similar to manufacturing halls seen at many North Korean industrial facilities but is unlikely to be used for ship construction because it lacks direct egress to the water. 

To the east, a large area is being cleared alongside two existing ship construction halls, possibly for additional construction facilities. The quay is being built out, and several small buildings have been demolished in the area. The purpose of this activity is unclear. 

Sok Island 

About 30 kilometers southwest of Nampho, just off North Korea’s west coast, lies Sok Island, home to several underground ports. Since this summer, a sizable construction project appears to be underway although its nature is unclear.  

Several of the small roads on the island have been widened to accommodate truck traffic, and new buildings have appeared at two of the few unforested parts of the island. 

Many of the buildings appear consistent with military or construction worker housing. 

No work appears to be taking place at the underground port access points. 

There are a small number of trucks visible on the island, apparently hauling or dumping dirt or sand, but much of the work appears to the concentrated in dredging work just off the south coast of the island. 

The dredging appears to be related to seawall construction. The wall is low at present and reveals itself during low tide. 

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Since President Donald Trump expressed his desire to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un before the end of the year, concerns and criticism in both South Korea and the United States have outweighed optimism. Critics warn that a “Seoul bypass” could weaken the US-ROK alliance; that Trump may seek nuclear arms control rather than denuclearization; that a small deal would amount to accepting North Korea’s nuclear status; and that no deal is better than a small or bad one. In short, if complete, verifiable, and irreversible dismantlement (CVID) and a big deal are unattainable, these critics consider the status quo—effectively doing nothing—preferable to accepting something smaller. 

CVID has long been the preferred approach to the North Korean nuclear problem. For more than three decades, however, South Korean and US governments have pursued CVID through both substantial incentives and strong sanctions and pressure without ever achieving that goal. By 2017, when North Korea conducted its sixth nuclear test and test-fired its first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), it had become clear that this approach had failed. 

The “uncomfortable truth” today is that North Korea is already nuclear-armed and that complete denuclearization is unlikely for the foreseeable future. Increasingly, in both South Korea and the United States, denuclearization is being viewed less as an immediate policy objective and more as a long-term goal, much like Korean reunification. The era of “living with a nuclear North Korea” has already begun. 

The question is whether something more can be done beyond the status quo but short of denuclearization that would improve the security situation on the Korean Peninsula, such as a nuclear “freeze.” Trump recently said North Korea possesses “57 very powerful nuclear weapons,” while numerous open sources cite North Korean likely possessing enough nuclear material for more than 100 weapons. More troubling is North Korea’s continued expansion of its nuclear material production capabilities, increasing its ability to grow its nuclear weapon arsenal over time. At a January 2026 press conference, President Lee Jae Myung warned that Pyongyang was producing enough fissile material for 10-to-20 nuclear weapons every year. If that pace continues, North Korea could possess 150-to-300 nuclear weapons within a decade. 

North Korea has strongly resisted the CVID approach, and today rejects negotiations premised on its denuclearization. However, the US and its allies should be equally unwilling to accept the nuclear status quo. Caught between these two realities, the immediate objective should be to reopen political dialogue with North Korea to seek constraints on North Korea’s nuclear development and expansion to create the space for peace-building efforts to take hold.   

A Possible Opening for Another Trump-Kim Summit 

Many experts believe that despite Trump’s interest in another summit, Kim Jong Un will remain unresponsive, and no summit will take place. There are good reasons for this pessimism. Above all, Kim has not forgotten the humiliation of the fruitless Hanoi summit of February 2019, something he clearly does not want to repeat. Since then, North Korea has consolidated its nuclear arsenal and greatly expanded its security and economic cooperation with Russia and China. This makes the need for sanctions relief less urgent, and the resumption of dialogue with Washington, who will want some kind of nuclear and/or security concessions, less attractive. 

Recent developments, however, suggest that another summit remains possible. Trump has repeatedly emphasized his good relationship with Kim. Of late, he has notably refrained from mentioning “denuclearization.” In mid-August, Trump announced a major reduction in ongoing US-ROK joint military exercises, calling them “totally inappropriate and hostile.” The move appeared intended, at least in part, to address North Korea’s longstanding complaints about Washington’s “hostile policy” and create a more favorable environment for dialogue. In September’s Trump-Xi summit, mention of denuclearization was omitted from readouts from both Washington and Beijing. 

Kim Jong Un has also left the door open. North Korean statements have consistently refrained from criticizing Trump personally, even when complaining about US policy. In September 2025, Kim Jong Un even said he still had fond memories of Trump and there was no reason not to meet the United States if Washington dropped demands for denuclearization—a position that has been reinforced by subsequent statements by his sister. There are still likely strategic reasons for Kim to meet Trump again. Building better relations with the United States, South Korea’s principal ally, could strengthen Pyongyang’s strategic position against Seoul and enhance Kim’s international standing further than what his relations with either China or Russia can bring about.  

While it is unclear whether the US and North Korea can find common ground in time, the November APEC summit in Shenzhen offers a potential opportunity to facilitate such a meeting. Should Trump seek China’s help, Xi could arrange for a Trump-Kim or Trump-Xi-Kim meeting and demonstrate China’s diplomatic influence. Trump is unlikely to formally recognize North Korea as a nuclear-weapon state, but he may also refrain from making denuclearization the purpose of the summit, as rhetoric from the recent Xi-Trump summit seem to suggest. Whether that will be enough to entice the North Koreans back to the table is unclear.  

An Uncomfortable Interim Formula: Peaceful Coexistence with Nuclear Constraints 

Broadly speaking, there are two approaches to the North Korean nuclear problem: a clear and direct one and an uncomfortable, gradual one. The former, largely conservative approach emphasizes maximum pressure and sanctions, opposes incentives without prior significant denuclearization steps, favors a big deal for CVID over small deals, and keeps military options on the table. If successful, such an approach could resolve the nuclear problem decisively and cleanly. In practice, however, it has proved unrealistic and potentially dangerous, with North Korea racing ahead with its nuclear development as the West holds out for a perfect solution. CVID and the formula of “denuclearization first, peace regime later” have lacked both effective means and a viable path to implementation. 

The “uncomfortable” approach begins by acknowledging that previous denuclearization strategies have failed and that coexistence with a nuclear-armed North Korea may be unavoidable for an extended period. It retains complete denuclearization as a long-term goal but focuses first on urgent security priorities: suspending nuclear activities such as fissile material production, weaponization, and nuclear and ICBM testing; preventing military clashes; and reducing nuclear risks. Rather than insisting rigidly on “denuclearization first,” it allows peace-building and risk reduction to proceed in parallel with, or where possible in advance of, denuclearization.  

It also recognizes the limits of South Korea’s role and the leading role of the United States in breaking the diplomatic deadlock. This, however, is not appeasement. Deterrence and sanctions must remain part of the strategy as long as North Korea has nuclear weapons. 

The Lee Jae Myung government is already moving in this direction through its pragmatic diplomacy. It has made “peaceful coexistence” its top priority in its North Korea policy and does not insist on “denuclearization first.” Its END initiative—exchange, normalization, and denuclearization—announced in September 2025, rejects rigid sequencing among the three pillars and seeks progress wherever possible. The Lee government has also proposed a three-stage approach to denuclearization: suspension-reduction-dismantlement. Rather than repeating the increasingly ineffective call for “complete denuclearization,” this approach focuses first on suspending what it can as a substantive interim stage that could be accompanied by partial sanctions relief and other incentives. 

Above all, the Lee government has viewed another Trump-Kim summit as a potential breakthrough for denuclearization and peaceful coexistence. At the August 2025 US-ROK summit, Lee asked Trump to serve as a “peacemaker” on the Korean Peninsula while casting himself as a “pacemaker” in support of Trump’s efforts. This marked a departure from the Moon Jae In government’s concept of South Korea’s role as the “driver” of Korean Peninsula diplomacy. 

These shifting South Korean and US positions would give North Korea more room to reenter dialogue at a lower political cost. For North Korea, another summit could open the door to sanctions relief, improved relations with Washington, enhanced international standing, and reduced pressure for immediate and complete denuclearization. Kim Jong Un may therefore find it increasingly unwise to ignore Trump’s overtures altogether. 

For the United States, renewed diplomacy would help check North Korea’s runaway nuclear and missile programs. In particular, a suspension of ICBM testing and development would reduce one of the most direct security threats to the U.S. homeland. Reduced tensions and greater stability on the Korean Peninsula would also allow Washington to devote more diplomatic, military, and strategic resources to other pressing regional and global challenges. For Trump personally, a successful deal with Pyongyang could deliver a significant foreign-policy achievement and help restore his image as a peacemaker. 

If Seoul and Washington prepare a political, diplomatic, and economic package attractive enough to bring North Korea to the negotiating table and secure some level of nuclear constraints, Kim’s calculus could change. The immediate task is to convince Pyongyang that dialogue is more advantageous than confrontation. The ultimate task is to convince it that denuclearization is more advantageous than nuclear armament. 

To get there, we need to build a peace regime on the Korean Peninsula that makes peaceful coexistence between the two Koreas possible and enables them to move beyond zero-sum security competition. 

The road will be long and arduous. The critical challenge is to travel that road without war or nuclear use. 

The post The Dangers of North Korea’s Nuclear Status Quo  appeared first on 38 North.

Panghyon Area 

The Unmanned Aeronautical Technology Complex is one of several related facilities around Panghyon, North Phyongan province. 

The complex is located at Panghyon Airfield (also called Kusong Airfield) and is adjacent to an aircraft maintenance area. About 3 kilometers to the southeast is the Panghyon Fabrication/Assembly plant and a little further beyond that is the Panghyon Aircraft Factory, protected by hills. 

An unidentified new facility is currently under construction alongside the fabrication/assembly plant. 

Drone Base 

The drone facility has been slowly expanding since hangars to accommodate large drones began appearing in 2024. The most recent addition was a probable manufacturing hall; its roof was installed over the summer. 

Several taxiways on the airfield and an apron have been recently resurfaced, but the main runway has not been touched. 

Since the beginning of September, work has been underway to clear an area that sits between the rear of two hangars and a taxiway. It is unclear if this is for further construction, but is worth monitoring. 

New Facility 

Additional construction is also underway at a new, large, unidentified facility immediately to the south of the Panghyon Assembly Plant. 

The foundations for several new buildings were added over the summer. The majority of buildings on the site, including three large halls, do not yet have roofs, and the site is not likely to be completed until at least 2027. 

Panghyon Aircraft Factory 

Notable work at the Panghyon Aircraft Factory includes the demolition of a small structure at the southern end of the facility.

Major work on several new manufacturing halls was completed earlier this year. The demolition of the small building opens up a large space for an additional manufacturing hall, should managers desire it. 

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When Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping met in May, the discrepancy between the two governments’ accounts of their North Korea discussion drew considerable attention. While the White House said the two leaders had “confirmed their shared goal to denuclearize North Korea,” Beijing’s readout omitted denuclearization altogether, with subsequent Foreign Ministry press briefings neither confirming nor denying the US fact sheet. Four months later, the notable feature of the two sides’ accounts of the Trump-Xi summit was not their divergence but how much more closely they aligned on this issue. This time, both sides omitted denuclearization, the US side noting only that the two leaders “discussed … North Korea.” China’s September summit readout said the two leaders “exchanged views on … the Korean Peninsula,” essentially repeating its formulation from May. Also notable was that both Washington and Beijing reported agreement on Iran’s nuclear program but no comparable agreement on North Korea’s nuclear program.

The White House’s apparent retreat from its May language comes amid President Trump’s renewed interest in meeting Kim Jong Un this year. Beijing, meanwhile, has increasingly faced pressure from Pyongyang on the issue despite publicly avoiding denuclearization terminology since summer 2023. For different reasons, Washington and Beijing thus seem to share an interest in not publicly highlighting a topic that Pyongyang has reminded both parties it regards as anathema.

North Korea’s Pre-Summit Signaling

Ahead of the September Trump-Xi summit, North Korea issued a series of nuclear- or defense-themed statements and carried out several related activities. This included statements from the Defense Ministry and Kim Yo Jong warning what might prompt North Korea to invoke “relevant provisions” of the nuclear law; statements from Kim and Choe Son Hui pushing back on denuclearization; weapons tests; and an unusually high-profile nod to the Missile Administration and the Second Economic Commission, which oversees North Korea’s planning, production, distribution, and foreign sales of military products. Collectively, these statements and activities reinforced Pyongyang’s rejection of denuclearization while underscoring its continued emphasis on military power. Although they had different immediate triggers and intended audiences, at least some also appeared to target China as Xi prepared to head to Washington, presumably to warn Beijing against associating itself with Washington’s denuclearization agenda.

Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui’s unusually forceful September 24 statement on North Korea’s “everlasting” nuclear status, issued on the eve of the Trump-Xi summit, appeared aimed at least in part at Beijing. Her pronouncement went beyond Pyongyang’s customary assertion that its nuclear status is permanent, declaring it “inevitable to reorganize and fix the geopolitical structure centered on the DPRK with nukes.” The exact meaning of this passage is unclear, but its reference to geopolitics may fit what appears to be an increasing tendency in North Korean messaging to frame its national security not only in terms of threats to North Korea itself but also in terms of the broader regional security environment. Kim Yo Jong’s September 18 press statement, for example, said that if North Korea deemed the “security environment in the region” to have been “seriously violated,” it could invoke the nuclear law.

This resembles North Korea’s heightened nuclear-themed messaging in the lead-up to high-level North Korea-China diplomacy over the past year. What is notable this time is the extension of that pattern to China’s diplomacy with the United States.

Conclusion

Whether North Korea’s pre-summit signaling influenced either government’s public messaging is impossible to know. However, the September readouts avoided the very issue Pyongyang had repeatedly pushed back against: denuclearization. Beijing maintained its practice of avoiding the term, while Washington dropped the denuclearization language it had used in May. This may have reflected sensitivity to Pyongyang’s position or an interest in preserving diplomatic space, but it may also simply have resulted from North Korea’s relatively low priority on a crowded US-China agenda.

Pyongyang is unlikely to have missed the shift in the US summit readout, but it would be mistaken to interpret the omission of denuclearization as a shift in US policy or recognition of North Korea’s nuclear status. Just days before the summit, the United States joined South Korea and Japan in reaffirming their commitment to North Korea’s “complete denuclearization.”

Nor does the shift come close to meeting the preconditions Kim has laid out for returning to talks. At February’s Party Congress, North Korea raised its already high bar for engagement by demanding US recognition of its nuclear status and withdrawal of its “hostile policy.” What would constitute withdrawal of the latter remains unclear, given Pyongyang’s expansive characterization of US “hostile policy.”

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Construction on both sides of the New Yalu River Bridge concluded earlier this month with the completion of the North Korean customs area. The link appears ready for use but todate, no significant trade activity has been observed. The crossing is expected to become the primary trade pathway between the two countries, replacing the single-lane Sino-Korean Friendship Bridge further north, and the largest border crossing for road traffic between North Korea and China. One report suggests the crossing could open within days. 

Recent Activity 

On the North Korean side of the bridge, several cargo containers are visible in the customs yard and other objects have appeared nearby. Between two satellite images taken hours apart on September 28, around 16 trucks appeared in a corner of the customs complex during the day. 

On the Chinese side of the bridge, several smaller vehicles are present near one of the entrances to the yard although no activity has been observed in the yard. 

On the bridge itself, several vehicles are visible on the Chinese side although they appear parked at the side of the roadway and are likely associated with maintenance work. 

There are also a number of unidentified objects staged in a parking lot between the customs yard and the riverbank. They first began appearing on imagery from June 20; it is unclear if they are related to potential opening ceremonies. 

Imagery shows that the old Sino-Korean Friendship bridge is still in use. The bridge’s Chinese customs yard in downtown Dandong was empty at around 11:30am local time on September 28 and packed with around 60 trucks around 3:40pm. Trucks were also visible on the bridge. The bridge’s North Korean customs yard was not captured in the image. 

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Kim Yo Jong is arguably North Korea’s most powerful woman. However, existing explanations of her role do not fully account for her sustained prominence today. She is most commonly understood as either Kim Jong Un’s trusted spokesperson or potentially his contingency successor. This is juxtaposed to the rise of Kim Ju Ae since her introduction in November 2022; some consider the latter to be the likely successor. What is driving both women’s prominence remains unclear; their positions could reflect succession considerations, Kim Jong Un’s reliance on female family members, or other dynamics in an unprecedented political environment. If succession is part of the equation, it is unclear why a regime usually so careful with succession politics continues to sustain Kim Yo Jong’s prominence and relevance today as Kim Ju Ae increasingly appears to be positioned for a greater role.

One possible framework for understanding the significance of this pattern is a conditioning effect: Kim Yo Jong’s sustained prominence has normalized female Paektu authority in a deeply patriarchal system, producing a conditioning effect. The framework does not require Kim Jong Un to have deliberately elevated his sister in preparation for his daughter’s rise. What is observable is that Kim Yo Jong has remained central and relevant as the circumstances around Kim Ju Ae’s profile have evolved. Rather than treating Kim Yo Jong and Kim Ju Ae as separate or competing narratives, this framework considers how the sister’s years-long demonstration of authority may have reshaped the political terrain for Kim Ju Ae’s growing political life.

Female Paektu Legitimacy Meets a Patriarchal System

The Paektu bloodline – the direct line of descent from Kim Il Sung – is the core of North Korea’s hereditary succession. The Ten Principles for the Establishment of the Party’s Unitary Leadership codified the principle of family succession but does not prohibit a female heir. A North Korean propaganda booklet states, “Male or female, young or old, a person with exceptional qualities can be selected as successor.” In principle, bloodline reigns superior above all, including gender.

Political culture, however, presents a greater obstacle. Historically, women occupied few senior political positions—just 6 of 260 cabinet members between 1945 and 2000 were women—while state ideology emphasized their role in raising loyal revolutionaries rather than leading them. North Korean ideology appears to permit what the political culture has resisted.

Previous Paektu women illustrate that tension. Kim Kyong Hui – Kim Il Sung’s daughter and Kim Jong Il’s sister—held various senior positions, ranging from the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) International Department’s deputy director to head of the Light Industry Department in 1987. She was highly trusted; Kim Jong Il reportedly considered her words his, and she became Kim Jong Un’s unofficial guardian after Kim Jong Il’s health collapse in 2008. Her profile receded sharply after her husband Jang Song Thaek’s banishment for an alleged coup attempt, proving that a Paektu woman’s prominence can be reversed. Separately, Kim Jong Il reportedly considered his daughter Kim Sul Song a candidate for succession, arranging for her to observe a meeting with then South Korean politician Park Geun Hye as an example of female leadership. Despite being a direct Paektu-bloodline descendant, social barriers appeared too high for Kim Sul Song to become successor. The same cultural and political resistance appears to remain today.

The environment under Kim Jong Un is different. He publicly introduced his wife Ri Sol Ju in 2012, appointed Choe Son Hui as North Korea’s first female foreign minister in 2022, and promoted Kim Yo Jong to various senior party roles throughout the years. In November 2022, he introduced his daughter Kim Ju Ae to the world at a Hwasong-17 Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) site, making her the first Kim dynasty child to be publicly introduced at such a young age. While defector testimony indicates that women’s participation in political life has somewhat increased under Kim Jong Un, they remain uncommon in high-level positions and continue to face barriers to advancement. The UN similarly noted in 2021 an “overwhelming lack of women in the country’s highest decision-making bodies.”

Clearly, North Korea has not reached gender equality, nor is the unprecedented visibility of Kim Yo Jong and Kim Ju Ae necessarily indicative of succession. There is, however, more sustained visibility of women near the top and, for Kim Yo Jong, the demonstration of consequential authority by a Paektu woman.

What the Spokesperson and Contingency Arguments Explain Yet Miss Today

Kim Yo Jong’s role as Kim Jong Un’s trusted mouthpiece is widely accepted. She issued 12 official statements in her own name from March to November 2020, including three on behalf of Kim Jong Un—a rare delegation of authority. When South Korean activists launched leaflets into North Korea in 2020, she followed through on her threats, demolishing the inter-Korean liaison office in Kaesong. Her statements carry political flexibility her brother’s do not: they can be escalated, amended, or walked back.

Her prominence has also fueled speculation that she could serve as a contingency successor, particularly in 2020 when Kim Jong Un disappeared from public view amid reports about his health. Kim Yo Jong was seen as a credible alternative at that time. Given the suddenness of Kim Jong Un’s own succession, elevating his sister may have provided a contingency in the event of an unexpected leadership vacuum, particularly before any of his children were publicly introduced.

While these arguments capture important dimensions of Kim Yo Jong’s rise and relevance, neither fully explains the significance of her sustained prominence to this day, especially if viewed through a succession lens. North Korea’s succession doctrine runs vertically, from Supreme Leader to offspring, not laterally. If Kim Ju Ae is meant to become the successor, the contingency rationale for Kim Yo Jong’s prominence should subside. Yet, she still remains in close orbit to her brother.

Following the February 2026 Ninth Party Congress, Kim Yo Jong was moved from the Propaganda and Agitation Department (PAD)—the same department where Kim Jong Il worked and one responsible for the state’s ideological control—to the General Affairs Department (GAD), and was reinstated as an alternate Politburo member. While Kim Yo Jong has moved up and down the party hierarchy previously for reasons unclear, her latest movement nevertheless generated competing interpretations of her standing. Some viewed her departure from the PAD to the GAD, widely known for handling storage and party documents, along with her removal from the State Affairs Commission, as marginalization. Others viewed her director-level appointment to the latter as a promotion.

While a transfer out of the PAD is notable, the GAD’s overhaul with Kim Yo Jong as its leader makes the latter interpretation particularly important. North Korea leadership expert Michael Madden highlights GAD’s functions expanding from logistical support to broader responsibilities supporting information control, decision-making, and strategic communication. He also notes this as Kim Yo Jong’s first formal role in charge of domestic policy. She has continued issuing high-profile statements since taking the position to this day. While her precise balance of power remains contested, her continued political relevance is not.

The Conditioning Effect

The conditioning-effect framework shifts the question from what led to Kim Yo Jong’s earlier rise to what her sustained elevation has produced today: normalization of female Paektu authority. North Korean elites and the public have now had repeated exposure to a Paektu woman holding real authority, issuing statements moving foreign governments, and receiving deference from senior officials. Repeated exposure gradually lowers cultural, ideological, and political barriers as the country becomes accustomed to strong female Paektu authority.

This conditioning effect operates differently across two audiences. For the North Korean public, conditioning occurs through repeated media exposure and symbolic weight. State media incorporated Kim Yo Jong into the heroic Paektu narrative. In 2019, Kim Yo Jong rode her horse alongside Kim Jong Un up Mount Paektu, with her horse bearing the same five-pointed star as the Supreme Leader’s. When Ri Sol Ju made the same climb the next month, her horse was not awarded such insignia.

Moreover, South Korea’s Institute for National Security Strategy analysis of Kim Yo Jong’s statements between 2020 to 2022 found that while her personal or diplomatic messages appeared only through the external-facing Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), statements containing serious threats were released to both the KCNA and the domestic-facing Rodong Sinmun.[1] Subsequent analysis of her 2020 to 2026 statements revealed that, unlike other senior officials, Kim Yo Jong consistently issued public statements against the regime’s top foreign threats—the United States and South Korea. Her authoritative voice is reaching the public.

For political elites like party officials and military generals, the mechanism is more experiential. During the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, North Korea’s nominal head of state Kim Yong Nam deferred to Kim Yo Jong on protocol matters and offered her the seat of honor despite outranking her. Notably, author Sung-Yoon Lee noted in 2023 that no North Korean government entity has officially referred to Kim Yo Jong as Kim Jong Un’s sister. Over the years, elites have repeatedly watched a female Paektu leader exercising significant political authority, from pivotal roles in inter-Korean affairs to a leadership role in the GAD. She is becoming increasingly familiar with time and remains institutionally relevant.

Kim Yo Jong’s institutional trajectory may offer further clues about the audiences experiencing that authority. Her earlier role placed her inside the system shaping ideology and public messaging; her new GAD position places her more directly within an elite-facing information and decision-making sphere. Her movement therefore matters not only for what it reveals about her own standing, but also for which constituency is increasingly exposed to the conditioning effect.

This framework would weaken if Kim Yo Jong’s GAD role proved hollow and her institutional authority receded without a comparable replacement. It would weaken further if she were publicly purged or discredited, undermining the female Paektu normalization her prominence had built. Credible evidence that sustained exposure reinforces resistance to female Paektu leadership, rather than lowering barriers, would also undermine this interpretive framework.

From Sister to Daughter

No matter how symbolically staged, it would be difficult for Kim Ju Ae to single-handedly normalize female Paektu leadership. While she has legitimacy for succession as the direct offspring of Kim Jong Un, lineage alone does not eliminate the cultural and political novelty of a female supreme leader in a system that has never seen it.

Defectors have expressed confusion at the possibility of a young female leader, with older men specifically reacting negatively. Scholars highlight the longer lead-up time required, if succession is in her future, and Kim Ju Ae’s frequent attendance at military events to overcome gender biases. North Korean state media’s language for Kim Ju Aehas also evolved since her introduction, changing from “beloved child,” “most honorable,” to “Joseon’s Morning Star Female General.” [2] By 2024, the honorific “guidance,” typically reserved for the supreme leader or designated successor, was used to describe Kim Ju Ae.

These developments show an increasing willingness to present a young female Paektu descendant in authoritative settings. However, because no previous Kim child has been publicly introduced at such a young age, there is little precedent for interpreting these changes. The evolving titles and staging may signal a deliberate political trajectory or reflect experimentation with how to integrate the child into the regime’s political narrative.

The visual relationship between the sister and daughter is also changing. Kim Yo Jong escorted Kim Ju Ae to her seat in August 2024. When Kim Jong Un distributed rifles to senior party and military officials in February 2026, Kim Ju Ae helped hand them out while being captured in standalone images. In previous similar settings, such as during an inter-Korean summit, Kim Yo Jong assisted Kim Jong Un in handing him a pen to sign with. In released photographs, Kim Yo Jong appeared only in group photos. From sister to daughter, the visual center of gravity appears to be shifting.

The two trajectories do not need to compete. Kim Yo Jong demonstrates what a female Paektu leader can do today, while Kim Ju Ae increasingly demonstrates what the next female Paektu generation might become.

Conclusion

North Korea has now spent years with a female Paektu figure visibly exercising consequential political power. This does not mean North Korea has gender equality; it means a subsequent Paektu woman exercising authority at the highest levels will no longer be as unprecedented.

North Korea’s signals are limited but rarely accidental. The unusual development worth watching is not the rise of Kim Yo Jong or Kim Ju Ae individually, but the sustained prominence of two female Paektu figures at the same time before different audiences and amplified at different times. Kim Jong Un’s intent for sustaining Kim Yo Jong’s prominence is still unclear. What matters is whether Kim Yo Jong’s authority sets a precedent with observable consequences for what follows and the political environment she leaves behind. The sister may be the architecture on which the daughter can build her political life.

The views expressed here are those of the author alone and do not represent those of the US Air Force, the U.S. Department of Defense, or the US government.

The post Sister Before Daughter: Kim Yo Jong and the Normalization of Female Paektu Authority for Kim Ju Ae appeared first on 38 North.

After years of stalled talks, health cooperation could give Washington a practical way to restore working-level contact with Pyongyang and help reduce regional health risks.

US-DPRK diplomacy has remained largely frozen since the second summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un ended without an agreement in Hanoi in February 2019. Working-level talks in Stockholm collapsed that October, leaving the two governments without a sustained negotiating channel.

The diplomatic environment has only become more difficult since then. North Korea has continued developing its weapons programs, expanded its relations with Russia and China, and rejected negotiations centered on denuclearization. Recent developments indicate renewed interest in direct US-DPRK engagement, but Pyongyang’s guarded response and significantly higher threshold for talks suggest that any new efforts would begin under far more constrained conditions than in 2018 and 2019. Years of interrupted contact, including the COVID-era border closure, have also weakened many of the working-level relationships and institutions that once provided channels for engagement.

Health cooperation could be a way to begin rebuilding that missing layer. Gaps in disease detection and treatment inside North Korea create risks beyond its borders. Sustained technical cooperation would give US institutions regular contact with North Korean counterparts and better knowledge of conditions inside the country, while leaving the larger political discourse for the highest levels.

For that to happen, however, cooperation measures would need to move beyond previous humanitarian efforts centered on emergency relief or one-time deliveries. Its focus should instead work toward establishing programs that North Korean institutions help shape, implement and sustain. Professional exchanges and shared technical work would give both sides repeated reasons to remain in contact.

Starting With Shared Priorities

North Korea has repeatedly emphasized development and self-reliance in its health policy. The expansion of the 20×10 Regional Development Policy to include hospitals, along with recent medical exchanges with Russia, points to an interest in strengthening domestic capabilities rather than relying indefinitely on external relief.

Closer ties with Russia may provide short-term resources, but they do not resolve the DPRK’s limited access to wider technical networks. Cooperation with American and multilateral institutions would open additional channels for medical expertise while supporting the domestic capacity Pyongyang seeks to build.

A sustained health initiative would be more likely to endure if it focused on areas where American and North Korean interests overlap. A multilateral or regional institution acceptable to both sides could help identify projects serving shared health needs and North Korean priorities. External partners could contribute financing and expertise through that framework, with Washington facilitating any required licenses or exemptions. North Korean institutions would retain responsibility for implementation and long-term operation.

Tuberculosis (TB) provides one obvious starting point due to both the severity of North Korea’s continuing TB burden and the record of collaborative success already established. The DPRK remains among the World Health Organization’s (WHO) high-burden countries for both TB and multidrug- or rifampicin-resistant TB; in 2024, only 1.6 percent of bacteriologically confirmed pulmonary cases were tested for rifampicin resistance. Past Global Fund-supported programs provide a useful precedent for renewed cooperation. More importantly, unchecked drug-resistant TB in North Korea could add to the global burden of drug-resistant disease.

Potential new projects could work to strengthen provincial diagnostic laboratories, infection-control capacity, reliable drug supply, treatment follow-ups and, where feasible, negative-pressure facilities. Vaccine cooperation could focus on cold-chain management, storage, surveillance and quality control. Other initiatives could support selected medical supplies or protective equipment that North Korean facilities could eventually produce or maintain domestically. These projects could produce benefits beyond their immediate targets. Stronger tuberculosis diagnostics, for example, would also improve laboratory capacity for other diseases.

North Korea itself also offers evidence that repeated cooperation can gradually expand local responsibility. The Eugene Bell Foundation, an American-South Korean organization that has worked in North Korea since 1997, later developed a program for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis. By 2019, it was treating approximately 1,800 patients, with a reported cure rate near 75 percent. Its teams initially removed GeneXpert diagnostic machines after each visit, later stored them at the British Embassy and eventually left them with North Korean caregivers. This allowed local diagnosis to continue between foreign visits, demonstrating that technical responsibility could expand even while the broader political relationship remained strained.

A new health framework should deliberately seek this kind of institutional progression: from delivery, to joint operation, to maintenance, to greater North Korean responsibility. This would make cooperation more practical to sustain while turning external assistance into a durable institutional partnership.

Building Reciprocity Into the Program

Successful health cooperation between political adversaries has historically depended on giving each participant a substantive role, helping create conditions for improved relations.

During the Cold War, the World Health Organization’s campaign to eradicate smallpox created a narrowly defined area of cooperation between the United States and Soviet Union. Moscow supplied large quantities of heat-stable, freeze-dried vaccine, while the United States contributed epidemiologists, financing and operational expertise. Their governments remained strategic adversaries, but specialists from both countries could contribute capabilities the campaign required. This allowed both parties to participate with improved parity on an apolitical issue, while helping to reduce diplomatic tensions.

This kind of model should be followed for North Korea as well. North Korean physicians and public health officials possess their own expertise, including experience delivering tuberculosis treatment, vaccination and clinical care under severe resource constraints. Regional or international meetings could give them opportunities to contribute that knowledge alongside opportunities to receive training. Such opportunities have long provided a way for states to maintain technical contact across political boundaries: the first International Sanitary Conference in 1851 brought diplomats and physicians from twelve states together around common health problems decades before durable international health institutions emerged, and in an age where nations are noted to “have forgotten their former rivalries and join hands”.

Cuba provides a more contemporary example of how medical expertise can itself become an international contribution. For decades, Havana has deployed physicians and other health workers abroad as part of its foreign engagement; during the 2014 West African Ebola outbreak, Cuba committed 165 health professionals to Sierra Leone through the WHO response. Studies of Cuban medical diplomacy have argued that these missions gave a relatively small state international visibility and influence through a capability it could offer other countries.

North Korea has its own history of sending medical personnel abroad. Eight North Korean doctors, including a surgeon and pediatrician, arrived in Mozambique in 1975, and decades later, the UN Security Council’s Panel of Experts documented DPRK medical workers in countries including Angola, Nepal, Nigeria and Tanzania. Rather than treating North Korean clinicians only as recipients of training, a future framework could similarly allow North Korean clinicians to contribute through internationally supervised medical work in third countries rather than treating them only as recipients of training.

Professional exchanges could become a basis for two-way cooperation. North Korean physicians and public health officials could participate in short courses, observerships, case conferences, research workshops and technical-English training in the United States or neutral locations. Foreign specialists could conduct scheduled visits or provide remote consultation. Over time, North Korean clinicians might also participate in internationally administered medical missions abroad. Any such exchanges or missions, however, would require a specific public-health exemptions from UN restrictions on information exchanges and income-earning work by DPRK nationals abroad.

The WHO has already worked with the DPRK Ministry of Public Health on workforce development, laboratory quality, surveillance, and noncommunicable diseases.[1] Similarly, UNICEF maintains operational ties, partnering with the North Korean government in September 2024 to launch a nationwide vaccination campaign that delivered over four million doses and trained more than 7,200 local health workers.

Rather than create a separate diplomatic framework, Washington could organize its participation through existing multilateral mechanisms, leveraging institutions like UNICEF where the United States already holds an Executive Board seat.

Making Cooperation Feasible and Durable

Even technically sound health programs can stall if institutions cannot move equipment, transfer money, arrange travel, or obtain licenses. Targeted sanctions relief or exemptions for approved health projects could ease these constraints while serving as a limited concession from Washington in support of renewed engagement. Alongside such measures, a neutral international body could manage funding, technical standards, and monitoring, with hospitals, universities, and specialists retaining responsibility for individual projects.

Multi-year financing would make this framework more durable by insulating programs from annual political changes and allowing institutions to plan beyond a single delivery or visit. Progress could then be measured by whether equipment remains operational, treatment continues without interruption, and counterpart institutions continue meeting as scheduled.

What Washington Would Gain

The most immediate benefit to America would be a channel of regular contact with North Korean institutions. Security diplomacy typically concentrates interaction among a small number of senior officials meeting under enormous political pressures. Health cooperation would involve a broader range of institutions with programs designed to remain operational despite political shifts. Such working-level relationships would help rebuild knowledge of North Korean institutions that remote observation cannot.

The US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDs Relief (PEPFAR), started in 2003 under the George W. Bush administration, illustrates how health assistance can produce both health-system strengthening and diplomatic returns. By 2021, its HIV investments supported nearly 300,000 health workers and more than 3,000 laboratories across 50 partner countries, creating a workforce and laboratory network that later supported responses to Ebola and COVID-19. Research on PEPFAR and US health assistance more broadly has linked such programs to more favorable perceptions of the United States. Repeated professional contact could likewise give North Korean participants a basis for judging American institutions through direct experience rather than solely through the context of military and political confrontation.

Stronger health capacity on the Korean Peninsula would also improve regional preparedness. Faster diagnosis and more reliable treatment inside North Korea would help neighboring countries and international organizations assess and respond to cross-border threats.

Leading such a framework could also help rebuild the United States’ role in global health at a time when confidence in American reliability has weakened in many countries. Sustained cooperation with a traditional adversary could provide a concrete example of American medical and scientific institutions’ ability to address shared problems despite unresolved political tensions.

Rebuilding Capacity for Diplomacy

Nearly seven years after the last US-DPRK meeting, Washington and Pyongyang no longer have officials who know one another through collaborative work, institutions accustomed to carrying out joint commitments, or a recent record of completing even limited projects together.

Health cooperation offers one practical way to begin rebuilding the inter-institutional relations through shared goals that carry relatively low political risk. Its value would be visible when projects remain operational and counterpart institutions continue resolving problems together. Each completed initiative could provide a basis for the next, while strengthening global health security.

Over time, such cooperation could leave both sides with a broader set of working relationships and a recent record of institutional interaction. In a relationship where those foundations have largely disappeared, historical lessons illustrate how healthcare diplomacy can create a more substantive basis for future engagement than episodic contact alone.

The post What Health Diplomacy Can Offer US-DPRK Engagement appeared first on 38 North.

At a July 1 meeting of the Peaceful Unification Advisory Council in Incheon, President Lee Jae Myung pledged that South and North Korea would find a path on which they “respect each other’s systems and sovereignty” and coexist in peace.

Sovereignty is an attribute of statehood. A South Korean head of state was undertaking, on the record, to treat the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea or DPRK) as a state.

Behind the pledge is a changed Peninsula. Pyongyang has declared the two Koreas hostile states and abandoned unification as a goal—and with that, the division both sides had shared for eighty years, each claiming the whole, has come apart. One side has left it. The other still lives under a constitution that mandates peaceful unification and has to decide what that mandate means now that the counterpart has withdrawn.

The administration’s answer is the Policy for Peaceful Coexistence on the Korean Peninsula. Its implementing strategy is a peaceful two-state framework: peace first, and the counterpart acknowledged as a state. It keeps faith with the constitution’s mandate, keeps the peace, and does not wait on the other side’s goodwill.

The Policy: What Changed, and What Seoul Answers

In December 2023, Kim Jong Un declared that inter-Korean relations were no longer a relationship of kinship but a relationship of two hostile states—two belligerents at war. Within months the declaration was made concrete: the monuments to unification demolished, the rail and road links across the border severed and walled. The country’s recently revised constitution has also deleted the unification clauses.

North Korea’s practices changed as well. Pyongyang disbanded the institutions that used to manage inter-Korean relations and refuses dialogue and exchange with South Korea across the board. The military hotlines lie dormant. While Seoul still hopes to restore the suspended 2018 Comprehensive Military Agreement—a once-promising set of confidence-building measures—Pyongyang has declared it void and reversed the concessions it once made. Two armies face off along the world’s most fortified border with no functioning mechanism between them for managing a crisis—and on such a line, a minor collision can escalate, step by step, into war.

This is the situation the Policy for Peaceful Coexistence on the Korean Peninsula seeks to address. It was not written for a quiet pPeninsula. It is designed to help manage a fraught relationship where one side has walked away and shut every door behind it.

In his Liberation Day address of August 15, 2025, President Lee set out three principles underlying the new approach: respect for the North’s current system, no unification by absorption in any form, and no hostile acts. The Unification Ministry’s white paper released in May gave the relationship its official name—a peaceful two-state relationship oriented toward unification—and framed it explicitly against North Korea’s “hostile two-state relations.”

The Ministry’s August 5 report to the President states the aims: face the reality of inter-Korean relations as it is, ease the North’s distrust, establish peace as the top priority, and strengthen the future orientation of unification.

Facing the reality of inter-Korean relations as it is means starting from the fact that North Korea is a state—separate, but not foreign. Easing the North’s distrust means removing the ground Pyongyang has named for it—the South’s ambition of unification by absorption—from the Republic’s declared policy. Establishing peace as the top priority means placing it before unification and before denuclearization. And strengthening the future orientation of unification means leaving unification to the future, for a time when its conditions are met. Together, these four are what the government calls a peaceful two-state relationship oriented toward unification.

Changing course rarely comes without controversy. Domestic debate has centered on three criticisms: that deferring unification abandons the constitution’s mandate for peaceful unification; that the framework weakens security by accommodating a nuclear-armed adversary at the expense of deterrence and the alliance; and, above all, that acknowledging North Korea’s statehood violates the constitution’s territorial clause. Each misreads the policy. The sections that follow take them in turn.

Why Peace Must Come First

Neither element of a peaceful two-state framework is new. Seoul introduced the two-state framing more than half a century ago: the June 23 Declaration of 1973 opened the door to coexistence within international institutions, and the simultaneous UN admission of 1991 made both Koreas full members of the state system. And “peaceful” is older still. In the détente of the early 1970s, both Koreas committed to peaceful unification in the July 4 Joint Statement and then wrote it into their constitutions. Even the ordering is not new: “peace first, unification later” was Park Chung-hee’s stated line from 1974.

What has changed is the setting. Both sides then claimed unification, and each meant unification under its own system—the survival of one and the end of the other; “peaceful” meant only that neither would go to war for it. Within that limit everything else was tried. Engagement—contact and exchange—was meant not only to draw the two Koreas closer but to open the North, in the belief that an opened North would change and that change would lead, in time, to unification; Kim Dae-jung’s Policy of Reconciliation and Cooperation, better known as the Sunshine Policy, said as much. Pressure served the same end by the opposite route—sanctions, arms competition, diplomatic isolation, human-rights campaigns, leaflets and loudspeakers across the line—and North Korean “collapsism”—the expectation that the regime would fall—never quite died out. And the North wanted the same, in reverse: what it called completing the territory, and so called liberating the South. Between two states each claiming the whole nation, that was a contest, and while it lasted it justified everything short of war.

However, North Korea’s revised stance now changes what the mandate requires. A counterpart that has renounced unification will receive every unification-oriented approach—even reconciliation, exchange, common growth, peaceful coexistence itself—as an assault on its existence. Pursuing the disappearance of a state that has refused unification is no longer competition between two claimants; it is coercion directed at the other state. The old latitude is gone.

Maintaining the old definition of “peaceful,” then, means the constitution’s mandate is contradictory. On the old definition, everything short of war counted as peaceful. But peaceful unification is unification by agreement, and unification pursued without the other side’s consent, whatever a unified Korea would finally look like, is a hostile merger by peaceful means.

The way out is to set the pursuit aside and keep the goal. The goal itself does not change, and it is not abandoned. What changes is its character. Unification ceases to be a matter of time—something that arrives, however gradually—and becomes a matter of conditions: something only both sides can bring about, not a goal one side carries toward the other. Because it depends on consent, its timing and its form, and whether it happens at all, are left open. This is where the government’s language points—leave unification to the future, strengthen its future orientation—and it is the only reading under which the constitutional goal and the constitutional means no longer collide.

The design is not without precedent. The Good Friday Agreement of 1998 preserved the aspiration to Irish unity while placing it under consent: unity may come only “by peaceful means with the consent of a majority of the people, democratically expressed, in both jurisdictions.” Unity remains available; coercion is excluded; the door is open and no one is pushed through it. A generation has lived under that arrangement without the aspiration being treated as a hostile posture. An aspiration disciplined by consent can survive—and can keep the peace while it waits.

Peace first, then, sets aside the one thing that cannot be pursued against the North without denying its existence: unification. This is where the framework differs most from the coexistence policies before it, from Kim Dae-jung’s onward. Those policies also renounced absorption, put coexistence first, and treated the North as a state in practice; but coexistence was, for them, the road to unification—the means, and unification the end it served. Now the framework takes coexistence as the end. The door to unification is left open, but only by agreement if or when the time comes. That is the arrangement the Good Friday Agreement made for Irish unity, and it is the only form in which the constitution’s mandate can still be honored, because every other form has become coercion.

Institutionalizing Peace Begins with Statehood

What does a peaceful coexistence policy actually change, given that the two Koreas have existed as separate states in fact since 1991? The answer is what it makes possible. Declaratory peace dies with the government that declared it, as the July 4 Joint Statement of 1972 did, and as the 1991 Basic Agreement did. Peace lasts only when it is institutionalized. On the Korean Peninsula, that process requires acknowledging the counterpart as a state.

Coexistence begins with how each side classifies the other. If the counterpart is unrecovered territory and an anti-state organization to be suppressed, then every offer it receives–reconciliation, cooperation, aid—reads as a sophisticated disguise for absorption. The distrust is justified.

In December 2023, Kim Jong Un confirmed it, and said it made no difference which side of Seoul’s politics was in power: the ambition to destroy the North’s system and regime had “remained unchanged even a bit whether they advocated ‘democracy’ or disguised themselves as ‘conservatism.’” He named what the party had concluded from the long history of inter-Korean relations—that unification could never be achieved with a South that had made unification by absorption its state policy—and read Article 3 of the South Korean constitution back at Seoul, word for word, as the proof. Decades of contact never dislodged that reading, because the classification underneath it never changed.

Acknowledging statehood does two things: it accepts the reality of the counterpart, and it creates a new possibility for the two Koreas to establish agreements that bind.

The record shows what that possibility is worth. The Basic Agreement read like a treaty; the South Korean Supreme Court and Constitutional Court both framed it as a gentlemen’s agreement, without legal force—a holding that followed from a legal order that withheld statehood. West Germany, by contrast, took the opposite path: it accepted East German statehood—two states in Germany, not foreign to each other—concluded the 1972 Basic Treaty as a treaty, and saw that treaty survive constitutional review and bind successive governments. The same design met opposite fates, and the difference was statehood.

With statehood acknowledged, new agreements between the two Koreas can be registered under Article 102 of the UN Charter and take their place on the plane of international obligation. Universal norms—the prohibition on the use of force, non-interference—become rules the two Koreas can invoke against each other, not abstractions floating above the Peninsula. Violations acquire a cost the violator does not control.

None of this makes the relationship foreign. The government’s own formula already draws the line: two states, not two foreign states. Statehood is acknowledged; the special relationship, and the orientation toward unification, remain. That is what separates a legal foundation for coexistence, which Seoul proposes, from a declaration of permanent estrangement, which Pyongyang has made.

Under Seoul’s new policy, deterrence remains untouched. The framework alters no military posture and no alliance commitment; the army that watches the border on the day the policy succeeds is the army that watches it now. Nor could the framework do otherwise: the same constitution that mandates peaceful unification mandates national defense, and the peace it commands is not a peace that forgoes the means of defending it.

Nor does the framework ask for trust. Both sides have now officially disavowed what the other most feared. Pyongyang has renounced not only unification but the means: Kim Jong Un has said that the North once spoke often of liberating the South and of unification by force, and that it now has no interest in either. Seoul has renounced unification by absorption in the principles set out above. Coexistence stands on those declared positions, not on goodwill. That is a floor: thin and cold, but load-bearing. The security objection mistakes this floor for a concession. It is the opposite—the first structure on this Peninsula that does not rest on trusting the adversary.

Is This Unconstitutional?

The constitutional objection rests on Article 3, the territorial clause. On the traditional reading, the Republic is the sole legitimate government on the peninsula; the area north of the line is unrecovered territory under unlawful occupation; the DPRK is therefore not a state but an anti-state organization; and a government that calls it a state acts against the text. A second prong follows from Article 4: to call the North a state is to call it a foreign country, and one does not unify with a foreign country—so acknowledging statehood ends the special relationship, and the command of unification with it. The question is not only domestic: because Pyongyang cites Article 3 as proof of the South’s intent, what the clause means is part of the dispute between the two Koreas, not merely a debate within one of them.

Status asks what an entity is; relationship asks how two entities treat each other. Whether the North is a state is not Seoul’s to choose—the DPRK has territory, population, government, and a seat at the United Nations, and it is a state whether or not any government concedes it. What relationship to have with that state is Seoul’s to choose.

The framework makes three distinct moves. It accepts the status. It withholds recognition — the discretionary act that would establish ordinary relations between foreign countries. And it chooses the relationship: special, not foreign. Two states can stand in a special relationship if they are not foreign to each other — and whatever Pyongyang now declares, these two are not: one people, divided in 1945 by the occupying powers, against its own will and without its consent. Seoul holds that position on its own account, as West Germany held it against East Germany’s insistence that the two Germanys were foreign states; it asks nothing of the other side.

Nor does statehood put unification out of reach. In 1973 the state of Bavaria asked the Federal Constitutional Court to strike down the Basic Treaty with East Germany (GDR) on grounds that read like the Korean objection today—that acknowledging the GDR as a state betrayed the Basic Law’s command of reunification and made the two Germanys foreign to each other. The court upheld the treaty. The GDR was a state; acknowledging it was not recognition of it as a foreign country; the two Germanys stood in a special relationship, not a foreign one; the treaty barred reunification neither in law nor in fact; and which road to take toward reunification was for the political branches to decide. Every element of the Korean objection was put to that court, and every element was rejected.

What of Article 3 itself? The objection reads it as a standing command to recover the North and remove its government. Two things follow from that reading. First, it makes Article 4 impossible to obey. A norm that denies the counterpart’s existence can be squared with the facts in only one way—by ending the counterpart—so every policy under it, however it begins, has to aim at that end; and a policy so aimed is not a peaceful unification policy. A peaceful unification is a unification by agreement, and an agreement requires a counterpart able to give it. Second, it condemns the record. The UN admission of 1991, the Basic Agreement, and every summit declaration since acknowledged the North in practice, and none of them has ever been held unconstitutional.

The command is in Article 4, not Article 3. Article 3 declares the extent of the territory and directs no one to do anything; Article 4 speaks in the imperative and mandates a peaceful unification policy. Read literally, the two collide—Article 3 admits no division, Article 4 presupposes it, and colliding provisions are read to accommodate each other: Article 3 states the goal, the territorial extent of a unified Korea, and Article 4 governs the means, which must be peaceful—and peaceful means require a counterpart. What Article 3 forbids is not acknowledging that the North is a state; it is renouncing unification for good and recognizing the North as an ordinary foreign country. The framework does neither.

On unification, then: the constitution mandates the goal, and Article 4 sets two limits on the means: peaceful, and within the free and democratic basic order. Within those limits, which road to take is for the political branches to decide. The framework stays within both limits: it confines itself to peaceful means, and acknowledges the North as a state, respects its system, and holds unification open to consent change nothing in the South’s own constitutional order. Respecting the North’s present system is not the same as accepting what a final unified state would look like; what exists across the border today and what unification must finally adopt are different questions, and the framework answers only the first.

Unification is not abandoned. It is kept, but is no longer considered a matter of time. Instead, it is of of conditions: whether it comes, and when, is for both sides to decide. After the counterpart’s withdrawal,as argued above, peace first is the only way to pursue unification that is not coercion; it carries the constitution’s command of peaceful means through to the end. A policy cannot violate Article 4 by being the last available way of obeying it.

Pyongyang’s Own Texts

The policy is, by the government’s own framing, an answer to a position Pyongyang has put in writing. Read as doctrine, it reduces to four sentences. We are two states. The project of liberation is closed. Leave us alone, and we will leave you alone. Touch us, and we will strike.

Everything about separation is unconditional and final: the declaration of two states, the removal of unification from the party charter and the constitution, the demolished monuments and the severed roads. These sentences close; they do not bargain. Everything about hostility and force, by contrast, is conditional, and Kim has said so himself. In October 2024 he told the world to read him properly: whenever he had stated the North’s position on the use of force, he had “clearly and consistently put a precondition of the word ‘if.’” If sovereignty is infringed, if territory is violated—then force. The threats are drafted as a conditional rule, and a conditional rule turns on what the other side does. The supreme norms show the same asymmetry. The party charter revised at February’s Ninth Party Congress carries the erasure forward—no unification task, no kinship with the South—while the first wartime clauses in the party’s history name no adversary. The constitution deleted the unification clauses and added a territorial article, but it did not name the South a hostile state. Separation is codified; hostility is not.

Separation is therefore grounded in a closed past, eighty years of confrontation that no one can reopen or amend. That verdict will not change, because the years it judges will not change. Hostility is grounded in present conduct, above all in what Pyongyang calls the South’s ambition of unification by absorption.

Of the grievances Pyongyang names, Seoul controls exactly one. Kim Yo Jong itemized them in August 2025: the ambition to absorb the DPRK, written into the South’s own constitution; the ROK-US Nuclear Consultative Group; the war drills “of aggressive nature”; and the repeated talk of “denuclearization,” which she cast as “totally denying” the North’s constitution. Only the first is Seoul’s to withdraw, and the framework withdraws it—officially, at the level of declared policy, which is the only level at which a doctrinal ground can be answered. The rest remain disputes: the nuclear program, military posture, the alliance. Nothing in this essay pretends otherwise.

Conclusion

North Korea’s abandonment of a shared goal of unification is a fact and will not be undone. What Pyongyang cannot end is the commitment on the southern side of the line: the constitution still mandates a peaceful unification policy, and no other state’s declaration can amend it.

A workable policy must therefore do three things at once: preserve the goal, exclude force and absorption, and acknowledge the state that stands on the other side. The peaceful two-state framework does all three. Nothing else on offer does.

Whether Pyongyang responds is an empirical question, and the argument does not depend on the answer. What it buys is not warmth. It is a cold peace—the floor described above, on which nothing further may ever be built, or which, if the other side chooses, becomes a staircase. This is what a peace-first policy looks like.

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