It was confirmed on the 6th that North Korea deleted ‘national reunification’ from its constitution and introduced a new clause defining its territory as “territory that to the south borders the Republic of Korea.” This is analyzed as further strengthening, by enshrining in the supreme law, the ‘hostile two-state theory’ declared by Kim Jong-un, North Korea's chairman of the State Affairs Commission.

At a briefing held that day for the Ministry of Unification press corps, Professor Lee Jung-chul of Seoul National University offered this analysis of the revised North Korean constitution. According to the full text of the amended constitution released at the briefing, North Korea deleted from Article 9 the content that had stipulated the principles of “independence, peaceful reunification, and great national unity” and that it “strives to achieve national reunification.” It also completely removed from the preface the sections on the achievements of President Kim Il-sung and National Defense Commission Chairman Kim Jong-il, thereby taking out references to the predecessors' activities toward reunification.

The amended constitution newly establishes a territory clause that had not previously existed. Article 2 defines the territory as “territory that borders the People's Republic of China and the Russian Federation to the north, and the Republic of Korea to the south, and includes the territorial waters and airspace established on that basis.” It also deletes the expression the northern half of the country that had appeared in the previous constitution.

It is interpreted as having nailed the two-state theory declared by Kim into the constitution as well. The stipulation in the constitution of South Korea's official state name, the Republic of Korea, is seen in the same vein.

However, the instruction Kim gave in his policy address to the Supreme People's Assembly (equivalent to a parliament) in January 2024, that it would be right to specify in the relevant (constitution) provision that “the Republic of Korea should be thoroughly regarded as the No. 1 hostile country and an immutable archenemy, and education and indoctrination should be strengthened accordingly,” was not reflected.

Professor Lee argued that it is a draft constitution that “allows for a hopeful assessment that, given the absence of characteristics such as a hostile relationship or a state-of-war relationship, an infrastructure for peaceful coexistence between the two Koreas could be put in place.”

The name of the amended constitution is ‘Constitution of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea’; the word socialist was dropped from the previous ‘Socialist Constitution of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea,’ which has been analyzed as an attempt to present itself as a normal state. Arranging the articles in a sequence similar to other countriesArticle 1 on the state name, Article 2 on territory, and Article 3 on citizensis analyzed in the same vein.

With provisions such as the Supreme People's Assembly's authority to recall the Chairman of the State Affairs Commission removed from the new constitution, Kim's constitutional powers are assessed to have been significantly strengthened. North Korea held the first session of the 15th Supreme People's Assembly on March 22~23 and amended the constitution.