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S. Korea rules out absorbing N. Korea: official
SEOUL, Dec. 30 (Yonhap) -- South Korea remains unchanged in its goal to reunify with North Korea through gradual integration, an official here said on Thursday, a day after Pyongyang accused Seoul of announcing a plan to absorb the communist state.

On Wednesday, the South's Unification Ministry outlined a series of steps that it said would lead to the denuclearization of the North and improve the lives of people in the impoverished neighbor ahead of the unification of the two Koreas. Hours later, Uriminzokkiri, the North's official Web site, said the 2011 plan underscores the South's intention to topple the communist regime, warning that an attempt to achieve unification by absorption would lead to "an armed clash and a calamity."

"It is not true that the South is seeking absorption," a Unification Ministry official said, commenting on the Uriminzokkiri editorial. "Peaceful and step-by-step unification has been and will remain the South's goal in dealing with the North."
The Southerners really don't want to absorb the costs of dealing with their crazy cousins to the north. South Korea just this generation has made first-world status, and the cost of integration with the North would be in the hundreds of billions of dollars. The south would prefer that America or China cover that.

Posted by: Steve White 2010-12-31
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=312892