North Korea’s Kim vows to dismantle father’s unification arch as he declares South Korea ‘principal enemy’

Seoul, South Korea CNN —

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Monday vowed to remove a massive monument to the possible reunification of the Korean Peninsula that his father constructed in Pyongyang, calling it an “eyesore.”

Kim’s call during a speech at a Supreme People’s Assembly (SPA) meeting in Pyongyang was the latest in a string of recent bellicose statements from the North Korean leader, including a New Year’s declaration that the North was ending a policy of seeking reconciliation with South Korea.

North Korea has also been active militarily in recent weeks, firing hundreds of artillery rounds into waters near a disputed border between North and South and testing what it said was a ballistic missile topped with a hypersonic glide vehicle.

Besides calling for the destruction of the reunification monument, Kim on Monday also said Pyongyang was abolishing all agencies for promoting cooperation with Seoul. At the same time, he called the South the North’s “primary foe and invariable principal enemy.”

While the North Korean leader’s rhetoric is strong, backing it up with the destruction of a symbolic structure constructed by his father Kim Jong Il – and one that represents the principles of his grandfather Kim Il Sung – shows decades of North Korean policy is being abandoned, experts said.

The Kim family, beginning with Kim Il Sung, has ruled North Korea since its post-World War II founding in 1948.

The North and South remain technically at war, but both sides have long declared an ultimate goal of one day peacefully reunifying the peninsula and viewed each other as members of the same family.

This picture taken on October 19, 2021 and released from North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on