Over 40 pct of S. Korean teens 'not interested' in unification: survey

SEOUL, Oct. 6 (Yonhap) -- Four out of 10 South Korean teenagers are "not interested" in achieving unification with the communist North, and another 25 percent prefer the national division as is, a survey showed Monday.

Some 43.4 percent said they were not interested in unification of the two Koreas,
minority party legislator Moon Kook-hyun said Monday, citing a Sept. 22-26 poll
of 4,355 teenagers nationwide. The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus
1.5 percentage points at a confidence level of 95 percent, he said.
While 46.3 percent of teens regarded unification as necessary, 24.8 percent said
the current situation is preferable. And while 56.3 percent viewed North Korean
civilians as "brothers," 12.8 percent called them "enemies." Some 24.5 percent
were against providing food aid to the impoverished North.
Seoul and nuclear-armed Pyongyang remain technically at war, since the 1950-53
Korean War ended in a truce, not a permanent peace treaty.
Inter-Korean relations began warming after the first-ever summit in 2000, with
leaders of the South and the North agreeing last year to adhere to the principle
of unification "by the Korean people themselves," without any outside influence.
Relations have been cooling, however, since the inauguration of Seoul's
conservative, pro-Washington President Lee Myung-bak in February. Taking a harder
line than his liberal predecessors towards Pyongyang, Lee has been firm on
linking aid and economic assistance to the North with its denuclearization
process.
Pyongyang has recently backtracked from a six-party aid-for-denuclearization deal
reached last year, threatening to restart its main nuclear reactor in Yongbyon.