South Korea formally designated North and South Korea as "two states" for the first time in its unification policy white paper, marking a historic departure from seven decades of reunification doctrine and signaling a fundamental recalibration of inter-Korean strategy.
The Lee Jae-myung administration's 2026 unification white paper, subtitled "Records of peaceful coexistence on the Korean Peninsula, 2025," explicitly commits to pursuing peaceful coexistence rather than hostility between two separate states. The Unification Ministry explained that the document acknowledges North Korea's recent reframing of inter-Korean relations as those between separate states, using that reality as the basis for mutual respect and dialogue.
From Reunification to Coexistence
In North Korea, as across hermit states, limited information requires careful analysis—distinguishing regime propaganda from verified facts. This policy shift represents Seoul's pragmatic response to Pyongyang's March constitutional amendment formally defining inter-Korean relations as those between separate states, referring to South Korea by its official name, the Republic of Korea.
The white paper asserts that North Korea's claim that inter-Korean relations have become "relations between two states hostile to each other" needs to be reworked into "relations between two peaceful states aspiring to unification." While acknowledging the reality of two de facto separate states, the ministry aims to establish peaceful coexistence while keeping unification as a distant goal.
maintains this approach viewing the two-state framework as consistent with the 1991 agreement's definition of inter-Korean relations as
