S. Korea remains unchanged on stance regarding N. Korea as enemy: defense ministry

Lead

SEOUL — The South Korean defense ministry on Thursday reaffirmed its position that North Korea is the country's enemy, dismissing a news report that the government may drop the language from its upcoming biennial defense white paper.

Colonel Lee Kyung-ho, deputy ministry spokesperson, told a press briefing that a suggestion implying the ministry was considering not defining North Korea as an enemy in the 2026 white paper is not true. “We reaffirm there is no change in our position that the North Korean regime and the North's military are our enemy,” Lee said, according to Yonhap News Agency.

Coverage Comparison

The news was carried by Yonhap, a South Korean wire service, which reported both the defense ministry’s strong denial and the background context of the original report. According to Yonhap, the Chosun Ilbo newspaper had reported that the defense ministry was considering removing the phrase from the 2026 white paper, citing the Lee Jae Myung administration’s policy of rapprochement with Pyongyang. The ministry’s response came in the same briefing, with Lee stating that work on a preliminary version of the white paper is underway and that the 2026 edition is expected to be published around the end of this year. A source familiar with the matter said the current white paper is expected to retain the labeling of North Korea as an enemy, per Yonhap.

Key Claims

The characterization of North Korea as an enemy first appeared in the defense ministry's white paper in 1995, according to Yonhap, after North Korea threatened to turn Seoul into 'a sea of fire' during a 1994 inter-Korean meeting. The term was rephrased to 'military threats' under the former liberal Roh Moo-hyun government but reappeared following North Korea's 2010 sinking of a South Korean naval vessel and its shelling of Yeonpyeong Island. The labeling was removed again under the Moon Jae-in government, which prioritized diplomacy with Pyongyang. The conservative Yoon Suk Yeol government, which preceded the current administration, defined North Korea and its military as the enemy, according to the report.

A single report by Yonhap cites the unification ministry as having expressed the need for a change in the labeling of North Korea, stating that 'peaceful co-existence on the Korean Peninsula stands as a clear policy goal of the Lee Jae Myung administration.' This perspective comes from a source identified as the unification ministry, and the ministry’s position was not echoed by other sources in the material reviewed. Yonhap’s report also notes that past liberal administrations did not label North Korea as an enemy.

Perspectives

The defense ministry's position remains unchanged from that of the previous Yoon Suk Yeol government, which explicitly designated North Korea as an enemy, reports Yonhap. In contrast, the unification ministry, under the current administration, has advocated for a shift in language, aligning with the policy of peaceful coexistence. This reflects a broader historical pattern in South Korean defense policy: liberal administrations have tended to soften or remove the 'enemy' label, as seen under Roh Moo-hyun and Moon Jae-in, while conservative governments, including that of Yoon Suk Yeol, have reinstated it after significant provocations from the North.

The article is based solely on the Yonhap account, which provides the ministry's denial, background on the historical usage of the term, and a reference to the unification ministry's position. No other outlets were provided in the available material to corroborate or dispute this information, so the reporting is effectively based on a single source.