President Yoon Suk Yeol has dismissed a recent call for a two-nation solution on the Korean Peninsula, calling the idea “unconstitutional.” 

Presiding over a Cabinet meeting Tuesday, the president said he couldn’t understand how people who had devoted their entire lives to unification could suddenly change their minds after North Korea declared that the two Koreas were separate nations. 

Yoon’s remarks were an apparent response to Im Jong-seok, a former presidential chief of staff under the Moon Jae-in administration, who recently put the idea of a two-nation solution forward as a more realistic approach.

During Im’s keynote speech last week at an event to celebrate the sixth anniversary of the September 19 Joint Declaration between Seoul and Pyongyang, Im also suggested that South Korea abolish its unification ministry and remove or revise Article 3 of its constitution, which defines the entire Korean Peninsula and its adjacent islands as South Korean territory. 

Yoon blasted the idea that the two Koreas could coexist peacefully as separate nations, saying North Korea considers them “hostile states” and threatens the South with nuclear weapons. 

Yoon added that if the nation abandons unification, inter-Korean conflict and confrontation will worsen and so will security risks on the Korean Peninsula.