According to news reports, on July 28th, the Office of the President of South Korea stated that the government will continue its efforts towards achieving permanent peace on the Korean Peninsula.
The Presidential Office noted that the South Korean side has observed the high-ranking officials’ first statement since the establishment of the Lee Jae-myung administration and found that mutual distrust between North and South Korea is deeply entrenched due to the hostile and confrontational policies implemented over the past few years. The office emphasized that making peace a permanent feature of the Korean Peninsula is a firm policy of the Lee Jae-myung administration, which will consistently take action to build an unhostile and non-war-prone Korea.
During a meeting held at the Central Government’s Seoul office building, a spokesperson for the Unification Ministry, Ju Bin Song, stated that the South Korean government would not be disturbed by the North’s statements and would resolutely promote the establishment of reconciliation and cooperation between North and South Korea, as well as peaceful coexistence. Ju Bin Song mentioned,
Kim Yong-jin’s remarks were a testament to the North’s close attention to South Korea’s policy towards it, with no particularly hostile or slanderous statements made in his speech.
Kim Yong-jin’s statement on the same day said that he was not interested in what policies the South might devise or proposals it might make, and hereby reiterated his position that he would not sit down to negotiate with the South directly. Despite Lee Jae-myung’s many soothing words during his more than 50 days in office, such as efforts to ease tensions on the peninsula and improve relations between North and South Korea, his blind obedience to the US-South Korea alliance and his style of confrontation against the North mirrored those of previous leaders.