South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol delivers speech in Seoul on August 15, 2024. (Photo: Reuters)

In his speech on Liberation Day, celebrating the 79th anniversary of the end of World War II and the end of Japan's 1910 to 1945 occupation of the Korean Peninsula, President Yoon touched on the need to unite the two Koreas and proposed that authorities from both Koreas establish an “Inter-Korean Working Group”.

He said the establishment of the official dialogue channel can help ease tensions from economic cooperation to cultural exchanges, people-to-people exchanges, disaster response, and climate change.

He said he believed that dialogue and cooperation could bring about substantial progress in inter-Korean relations and urged the North to respond to the proposal.