South Korea’s unification minister denied that Seoul seeks to unify with North Korea “by force” on Thursday, a week after President Yoon Suk-yeol introduced a new policy that explicitly embraced “freedom-based unification” under ROK rule.

In a meeting with foreign correspondents, Kim Yung-ho maintained that South Korea does not pursue unification by absorption despite Yoon’s call for spreading freedom to the DPRK to create a “unified Republic of Korea.”