South Korea is not seeking North Korea’s collapse, a top Seoul official in charge of relations with Pyongyang said Thursday, in an apparent move aimed at dispelling North Korea’s distrust toward South Korea.

North Korea has repeatedly accused South Korea of plotting to absorb its impoverished northern neighbor as a way to achieve unification of the Korean Peninsula.

“Unification through absorption leads to war,” the Disarmament and Peace Institute of North Korea’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement in September.

The North’s angry reaction came after South Korea unveiled the idea of using taxpayer money to help cushion the cost of the potential unification. Asia’s fourth-largest economy has almost completed a bill on how to finance unification with the North.

Unification Minister Yu Woo-ik said South Korea is seeking co-prosperity with North Korea in a step toward peaceful unification with North Korea.

“I made it clear that we don’t have an intent to either harass North Korea or topple North Korea’s system,” Yu said in an inaugural session of a South Korea and German advisory committee on unification.

South Korea hopes to learn from the German experience as it prepares for the eventual unification with North Korea. The two-day session brought together South Korean and German officials, including Lothar de Maiziere, the last prime minister of East Germany, who led the unification of his country with West Germany.

Yu claimed last week that unification is drawing near, though he did not elaborate on his reasoning behind his belief.

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak also said in June that it won’t be long before unification takes place and the event would come unexpectedly. He also did not give further details.

Yu also called on North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons programs and embrace changes, noting the nuclear ambition threatens the environment for unification.

De Maiziere told Yonhap News Agency that North Korea’s reforms and other efforts to transform the country will likely serve as a key catalyst in unifying the Koreas.

The two Koreas still remain in a technical state of war following a cease-fire at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War. 

(Yonhap News)