Kim Jong Un drops South Korea claims in constitutional amendment
kim jong un made North Korea's constitutional changes public after almost two years of speculation, and the amendment redraws the state’s territorial language to place the Republic of Korea to the south instead of treating it as a claim. The change also scraps references to peaceful unification and imperialist aggressors, a shift that narrows the document’s language on South Korea.
The amended territorial clause says North Korea's borders run with "China and Russia to the north and the Republic of Korea to the south, as well as territorial waters and airspace established on that basis." That is the first time North Korea has dropped territorial claims against the South, and it follows the two-state theory vis-à-vis Seoul that North Korea adopted in December 2023.
Seoul in North Korea's constitution
North Korea's new wording removes Seoul as the primary foe and drops the constitutional references that once tied the South to reunification language. Joint North-South statements at the 2000, 2007, and 2018 summits mentioned peaceful unification, but the revised text no longer carries that framing.
The shift also changes the assurance dynamic that North Korea had used for years. Under the July 4, 1972 South-North Joint Communique, North Korea explicitly assured the South that it had no intention to invade first, and in 1991 North Korea again assured Seoul of its peaceful intention under the Agreement on Reconciliation, Non-Aggression, and Exchanges and Cooperation.
Kim Il Sung's earlier line
Kim Il Sung adopted a militant unification policy in April 1975 and asked China for help with "liberating" the South, a reminder that North Korea's posture toward South Korea has long mixed reassurance with pressure. In March 1994, North Korea threatened war against South Korea and the United States over IAEA inspections of its nuclear program.
Against that record, the public constitutional amendment marks a formal move away from the old territorial claim over the entire Korean Peninsula. North Korea had long laid claims over the whole peninsula before the new territorial clause, and the document now places the Republic of Korea on the map as a neighboring state rather than a place to be absorbed.
North Korea's new posture
The practical change for South Korea is not a treaty or troop withdrawal, but a constitutional rewrite that strips out the legal language North Korea used to frame unification and sovereignty. North Korea's two-state theory, adopted in December 2023, now sits inside the constitution through wording that renounces territorial claims over South Korea.
For readers watching the Korean Peninsula, the next milestone is not another headline line but the response this wording draws from Seoul and from the states named in the text. The constitutional clause now stands as North Korea's public position: "China and Russia to the north and the Republic of Korea to the south, as well as territorial waters and airspace established on that basis."
