A great majority of South Koreans still see a need to reunify their country with North Korea, but the number of people in favor of reunification has dropped significantly apparently due to a series of recent provocations by the communist North, a survey showed Thursday.

   In a survey conducted by the National Unification Advisory Council, 74.4 percent of respondents said they saw a need for peaceful reunification of the two Koreas.

   The ratio marked a 7.7 percentage point drop from 82.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2015, and the lowest level since the presidential council began conducting the quarterly survey at the start of last year, it said.

   The council attributed the drop to recent military provocations from Pyongyang that included two nuclear tests since the start of this year.

   "The recent deterioration in South-North relations caused by North Korea's nuclear tests and missile launches, followed by the shutdown of the countries' joint industrial park in Kaesong appear to have adversely affected people's sentiment toward North Korea and reunification," the council said.

   The two Koreas technically remain at war as the 1950-53 Korean War ended with only an armistice agreement, not a peace treaty.

   The worsening of sentiment toward the communist North was clearly more apparent among the younger generations as only 20.1 percent of respondents in their 20s said the divided Koreas "must" reunify, while more than half of those in their 50s and 60s said reunification was a must.

   The latest survey was conducted on 1,000 people throughout the country, and has a sampling error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. (Yonhap)