South Korean Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae speaks during a press conference at the government complex in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, Dec. 29, 2014. AP
SEOUL, South Korea鈥擲outh Korea on Monday proposed talks with North Korea to discuss what it calls a range of issues needed to prepare for the unification of the divided countries.
It鈥檚 unclear if Pyongyang would accept Seoul鈥檚 offer as the country has viewed any of South Korea鈥檚 unification plans an attempt to take it over. North Korea wants a unified Korea with Pyongyang in charge.
Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae told a televised news conference that South Korea wants talks in January to discuss exchange programs, joint projects and laws needed for a unified Korea. Ryoo said South Korea hopes the proposed talks would also discuss resuming reunions of families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War.
Seoul launched a government committee on the unification in July, six months after President Park Geun-hye told a New Year鈥檚 press conference that unifying with North Korea would bring an economic 鈥渂onanza,鈥� not massive financial costs associated with any Korean unification.
North Korea made an angry response, saying Park鈥檚 plans were nothing but a plot to topple Pyongyang and build a unified Korea under a South Korean system.
The Korean Peninsula was divided into a United States-backed, capitalistic South Korea and a Soviet-supported, socialist North Korea after its liberation from the Japanese colonial occupation from 1910 to 1945.
The Koreas share the world鈥檚 most heavily fortified border as the Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty. Animosities deepened when their troops traded gunfire along the border twice in October.
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