Via NK News, a report on a South Korean minister’s dreams of merging its economy with the North:

North and South Korea should unify their economies while maintaining separate political systems, South Korean unification minister Lee In-young said on Thursday.

“Our approach now should aim more at the ‘one people, two countries, two systems, and one market’ model,” Lee told South Korea’s Seoul Shinmun newspaper, pointing to the European Union as an example of a similar system.

The existence of two separate markets competing with one another will lead to South Korea exploiting the North, Lee said. South Korea’s gross domestic product (GDP) is more than 50 times larger than North Korea’s, according to KOSTAT (Statistics Korea).

The unification minister added that he is pushing economic cooperation to appeal to South Korea’s younger generation.

“People in their twenties and thirties keep a close eye on what the inter-Korean issue means in their own personal lives,” Lee said, claiming that South Korea’s economy would grow if it merged with the North Korean market.

The unification ministry’s press office told NK News that Lee expressed his personal opinion, not the official stance on unification of the South Korean government.

THREE YEARS SINCE PANMUNJOM

The interview came a week before the three-year anniversary of the 2018 Panmunjom Declaration, in which South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un promised “a new era of peace” on the peninsula.

Lee said that he wants to push again to ratify the agreement at the National Assembly to mark the occasion. He also reiterated his desire to formally end the Korean War and be more “flexible” on economic sanctions against North Korea.

The unification minister also commented on the recent bipartisan hearing in the U.S. on South Korea’s controversial so-called “anti-leaflet law,” saying that too much attention was given to a small number of critical voices.

Meanwhile, the U.S. has yet to announce the result of its policy review on North Korea. With around a month to go before the first summit between the leaders of South Korea and the U.S. in Washington, Lee said that the Biden administration may be considering a phased approach towards denuclearizing North Korea.

“There is a possibility of flexibility on the sanctions issue, corresponding to progress in denuclearization,” he said.