Analysis | North Korea tensions sideline South's once powerful Unification Ministry

Every day, South Korea’s Unification Ministry sends officials to the border village of Panmunjom to call North Korea at 9am and 4pm. For more than 18 months, the North hasn’t picked up.

As North Korea steps up its nuclear weapons tests and threats, the Unification Ministry, dedicated to improving relations with the North and eventual peaceful reunification, faces an almost existential crisis.

Not too long ago the ministry was one of Seoul’s most powerful departments. It had central roles in engineering two historic summits between the leaders of the two Koreas and launching joint economic projects in the 2000s.

That is mostly gone after nearly a decade of hardline conservative rule in the South, and a rapid expansion of missile and nuclear weapons development in the North.

The nuclear problem has become much larger than just a Korean Peninsula issue. North Korea has launched midrange missiles over Japan and flight-tested intercontinental ballistic missiles, confirming fears that it’s close to its goal of building a military arsenal that can target the United States and its Asian allies.

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