The Un has apparently reached out to South Korea:
"An important issue in putting an end to the division of the country and achieving its reunification is to remove confrontation between the north and the south," Kim said in the address that appeared to be pre-recorded and was made at an undisclosed location.
"The past records of inter-Korean relations show that confrontation between fellow countrymen leads to nothing but war."
The New Year address was the first in 19 years by a North Korean leader after the death of Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-un's grandfather. Kim Jong-il rarely spoke in public and disclosed his national policy agenda in editorials in state newspapers.
"(Kim's statement) apparently contains a message that he has an intention to dispel the current face-off (between the two Koreas), which could eventually be linked with the North's call for aid (from the South)," said Kim Tae-woo, a North Korea expert at the state-funded Korea Institute for National Unification.
"But such a move does not necessarily mean any substantive change in the North Korean regime's policy towards the South."
Could it be that Kim Jong-un wants to justify lessening tensions by saying that is the true path to reunification (under Pyongyang's control, naturally)?
Why not accept the first without accepting or promoting the latter, eh? South Korea should focus on measures to reduce confrontation and assure North Korea that South Korea really doesn't want to invade the north.
But if this lessening of confrontation offer is just fishing for aid to save the regime, South Korea should say no, or at best dribble in aid to ward of starvation and insist on strict controls to keep the food from being sold to support the elites or used for the military's war reserves.
Talk, talk. Die, die, is what I say. Do what it takes to keep North Korea from being desperate enough to roll the dice and launch a bloody (if doomed) war until the whole rotten structure collapses.
