By Kim Yoo-chul
South Korea is considering removing the phrase "main enemy," referring to North Korea, from a biannual white paper to be released by the defense ministry in December, military sources said Wednesday.
"After a thorough review, the defense ministry will soon decide whether to delete its reference to North Korea as the main enemy in the 2018 Defense White Paper, which will be released in December," the ministry said.
South Korea designated North Korea as its "main enemy" in 1995. Back in 1994, North Korea threatened to turn Seoul into a "sea of fire" if war broke out. The labeling continued until 2000. But the South deleted the designation in 2004 and replaced it with "direct military threat."
The label was applied again in 2010 after North Korean artillery killed two soldiers and two civilians on Yeonpyeong Island, and has been used ever since.
The ministry declined to comment on whether the upcoming paper will give updated details on the North's military capabilities.
The possible removal represents Seoul's continued efforts to apply follow-up measures to ease military tension between the two Koreas after the April 27 Panmunjeom Declaration in which President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un agreed to suspend hostilities to foster permanent peace on the Korean Peninsula. The two Koreas are technically at war since the 1950-1953 Korean War ended in an armistice not a peace treaty.
The defense ministry's statement came a day after it decided to close 10 guard posts along the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating the two Koreas. It expects reciprocal behavior from the North over the wording change.
Whether the ministry's plan will materialize is yet to be seen, as the deletion is subject to public consensus based on the progress of denuclearization of the North.
The Panmunjeom Declaration didn't include details about how and when the North might begin "actual denuclearization." The historic summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Kim in Singapore also resulted in a vague agreement to denuclearize the peninsula, something there has since been little movement towards.
Analysts say the labeling change is debatable considering the complexity and difficulty of the issue.
Seoul is pushing forward with its initiatives to improve relations with Pyongyang even as nuclear talks between North Korea and the United States have stalled.
"This would be a reasonable risk for the South for the time being in terms of trust-building between the two Koreas," a defense ministry observer said.
Previous white papers included details of North Korea's military capabilities.
Details about the North's deployment of heavy artillery, in addition to more advanced tanks near the North-South border were included. Earlier papers also mentioned elite forces trained to infiltrate the South and disrupt critical facilities as other threatening factors.
"We have to keep an eye on upcoming updated assessments of North Korea's military specifically this year as the two Koreas are seeing reduced tension that hasn't been seen in the past," the observer said.
