A South Korean protester tears a North Korean flag during a demonstration marking the 71st anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War near the Chinese embassy in Seoul on June 25, 2021. Jung Yeon-je, AFP/file

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on Thursday proposed an "Inter-Korean Working Group" aimed at relieving soaring tensions with Pyongyang and exploring avenues for economic cooperation.

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Relations between the two Koreas are at one of their lowest points in years, with the North recently announcing the deployment of 250 ballistic missile launchers to its southern border.

North Korea has sent thousands of trash-filled balloons southward since May, prompting Seoul to resume propaganda broadcasts along the frontier and suspend a 2018 deal aimed at lowering temperatures between the two militaries.

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Declaring his "unification vision" Thursday at an event celebrating the country's liberation from Japanese rule, Yoon said: "As long as the state of division persists, our liberation will remain incomplete."

"The freedom we enjoy must be extended to the frozen kingdom of the North, where people are deprived of freedom and suffer from poverty and starvation," he said, calling for the establishment of a new Inter-Korean Working Group.

The body "could take up any issue ranging from relieving tensions to economic cooperation, people-to-people and cultural exchanges, and disaster and climate-change responses," Yoon said.

Yoon also underscored the "need to change the minds of the North Korean people to make them ardently desire a freedom-based unification".

"Even though the North Korean regime rejected our offer (to provide flood relief supplies) yet again, we will never stop making offers of humanitarian aid," Yoon said.

The North was recently hit by severe flooding in its northern regions near China, with state media reporting more than 15,000 flood victims were moved to the capital.

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International offers of support have poured in since news of the flooding disaster first emerged, including from Seoul, which offered humanitarian aid via the Korean Red Cross.

But North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said that the country's recovery efforts would be "thoroughly based on self-reliance", according to state media.

North Korea declared the South its principal enemy earlier this year, and Pyongyang has not responded to inter-Korean liaison hotline calls since April 2023.

© Agence France-Presse

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