Seoul, Dec 22 South Korea's unification ministry on Monday dismissed a news report that it had proposed a constitutional revision to President Lee Jae Myung to recognise North Korea as a separate nation as part of efforts to resume engagement with Pyongyang.
The reaction came after a local newspaper claimed that the ministry had proposed amending the Constitution to recognise North Korea as a separate, independent nation during a closed-door policy briefing to Lee last Friday.
The Constitution currently defines the entire Korean Peninsula as the sovereign territory of South Korea, effectively not recognising North Korea as an equal nation, reports Yonhap news agency.
Ministry spokesperson Yoon Min-ho dismissed the report as "groundless and false" during a press briefing on Monday.
"The ministry did not propose a constitutional revision during the policy briefing, nor has it ever reviewed such a move," Yoon said, expressing "regret" over what he called a "distorted report."
Additionally, the officials said that the military has internally updated a rule in defining the inter-Korean land border when dealing with incursions by North Korean soldiers to prevent the risk of accidental clashes.
The move comes as North Korean troops have repeatedly violated the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) within the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) separating the two Koreas since last year in the process of carrying out construction activities near the heavily fortified border.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said it has ordered troops to prioritise markers that indicate the MDL when making decisions, while also "comprehensively" applying both the MDL on the South Korean military map and a line connecting the MDL markers set out by the US-led United Nations Command (UNC).
The move effectively enables the military to use a line drawn farther southward in assessing whether North Korean troops' border crossings have occurred.
Under the updated guideline, even if North Korean troops cross the line connecting the MDL indicators, the South Korean military may not respond if it assesses that it is not the MDL crossing in terms of its own military map.
Nearly 1,300 markers were installed in 1953, a month after the signing of the armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean War, but only about one-sixth of them are identifiable. Maintenance efforts by the UNC have been suspended since the North fired at workers conducting the job in 1973.
The JCS issued the update in an official order distributed to subordinate units in September, spokesperson Lee Sung-jun said in a regular press briefing.
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