SEOUL—After naming a new unification minister just days before, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol stated on Sunday that the ministry had previously concentrated too much on delivering help to North Korea and that this needed to change.
Kim Yung-ho, the new minister, is a conservative academic and outspoken opponent of North Korean human rights violations, which Yoon has attempted to highlight amid escalating tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
“The Unification Ministry has been acting like the ministry of North Korean aid and it is wrong,” Yoon was quoted as telling staff in a statement issued by his press secretary. “It’s time for the unification ministry to change.
Yoon also encouraged the ministry to defend liberal democratic norms, claiming that unification will provide "better and more human life" to people in the South and North.
In an online blog published in 2019, Kim stated that the way to unification will open after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's "regime is overthrown and North Korea is liberated."
