North Korea Removes Reunification From Constitution and Formalizes Kim's Nuclear Command

A new territorial clause puts South Korea across the border

North Korea's revised constitution defines its territory as land bordering China and Russia to the north and South Korea to the south, removes the goal of Korean reunification, and gives Kim Jong Un explicit constitutional command over the country's nuclear forces. Adopted at the Supreme People's Assembly session on March 22 and 23, 2026, the changes turn Kim's policy of treating the two Koreas as separate states into the country's highest law.

South Korea's Unification Ministry released the revised text on May 6. Its new Article 2 includes territorial waters and airspace associated with North Korean land, while leaving the precise boundary with South Korea unspecified. That omission matters along a frontier where disagreements already involve missing land markers, competing military maps and disputed waters.

Kim also gains broader powers over state institutions. The constitution identifies the State Affairs Commission chairman, his government position, as head of state, authorizes him to veto legislation and permits him to delegate authority to use nuclear weapons to a national nuclear command body.

The Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security, in its constitutional revision analysis, describes the amendment as North Korea's 16th since its founding constitution in 1948. It places the revision about two and a half years after the previous amendment in September 2023.

For people on both sides of the peninsula, the changes connect three developments: the removal of reunification from state policy, a stronger constitutional position for Kim, and the treatment of the military frontier as a boundary between separate countries. Inside North Korea, that shift has already reached classrooms, workplace lectures and everyday speech.

What Article 2 says, and where it leaves uncertainty

Article 2 names South Korea by its formal title, the Republic of Korea. It describes North Korean territory as land bordering the People's Republic of China and the Russian Federation to the north and the Republic of Korea to the south, together with the waters and airspace established on that basis.

The clause also says North Korea will never tolerate any infringement of its territory. Lee Jung-chul, a Seoul National University professor speaking at a Unification Ministry briefing, described it as the first territorial clause in the North Korean constitution.

Neither coordinates nor a detailed border description appear in the clause. It also leaves out an explicit reference to the Northern Limit Line, the disputed maritime boundary in the Yellow Sea, known in Korea as the West Sea.

Lee suggested that leaving the boundary unspecified could reflect an effort to avoid immediately creating another source of friction. The institute's analysis nevertheless warns that future North Korean jurisdiction claims could intensify maritime disputes, including around facilities installed on Hambak Island in 2019, which it describes as south of the Northern Limit Line.

How reunification disappeared from the law

North Korea's former constitutional language described strengthening state power in the northern half of Korea and pursuing reunification through independence, peaceful reunification and national unity. The revision removes those reunification provisions and the reference to the northern half.

The change replaces a legal vision of North Korea as one part of a country awaiting reunification with a definition of a state adjoining South Korea. Kim had called in January 2024 for constitutional amendments identifying the South as the North's primary foe and invariable principal enemy, as well as defining separate territory.

The revised text implements the territorial separation without explicitly labeling South Korea an enemy. Hostile descriptions continue in political education and official statements, while the constitutional provision itself uses geographical language.

The main stages of the shift show how the legal revision followed changes already taking place:

• January 2024: Kim called for constitutional changes defining South Korea as an enemy and separating North Korean territory from the South.
• April 2024: Education authorities reportedly ordered teachers to remove reunification terminology from textbooks and lessons.
• September 2025: State agencies reportedly received instructions to replace maps of the entire peninsula with maps centered on North Korea.
• March 22 and 23, 2026: The first session of the 15th Supreme People's Assembly adopted the revised constitution.
• May 6, 2026: South Korea's Unification Ministry released the revised text.

Kim gains a stronger position over state institutions

Article 86 identifies the State Affairs Commission chairman as the head of state representing North Korea. The previous wording described that office as the country's supreme leader who represents the state. The revised chapter on state institutions also places the chairman before the Supreme People's Assembly, reversing their earlier order.

Article 90 gives the chairman authority to remove assembly deputies who have lost public confidence and to veto laws, decrees, decisions and directives adopted by the assembly or its standing committee when he considers them inconsistent with national development and public demands. A veto is the power to reject a measure adopted by another institution.

Kim's authority over senior personnel is also more explicit. While the assembly is not in session, the chairman can suspend, appoint or dismiss important officials, including the assembly chairman and cabinet premier. He also receives powers to award state honors and accept credentials from foreign ambassadors.

The comparison with the 2023 constitution records another change: the assembly's former explicit authority to recall the State Affairs Commission chairman has been removed. Taken together, the changes give Kim more written authority over lawmakers, senior officials and the measures they adopt.

Nuclear command can be delegated

Article 89 makes the State Affairs Commission chairman supreme commander of North Korea's armed forces and explicitly assigns him command over its nuclear forces. It then permits the chairman to delegate authority to use those weapons to a national nuclear command body.

That second provision is important because it creates a constitutional route for another body to exercise nuclear use authority with the chairman's permission. The identity, membership and operating procedures of that body remain unclear.

The Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security connects the delegation clause with preparations for situations in which the supreme leader is absent or the country faces a severe emergency. Its discussion of arrangements beyond Kim's rule is an interpretation of the institutional changes, rather than an announced succession plan.

Article 56 separately describes North Korea as a responsible nuclear weapons state and commits it to further developing nuclear weapons. The purposes listed are protecting national survival and development rights, deterring war, and safeguarding regional and global peace and stability. Nuclear development is therefore written into the constitution as a continuing state responsibility.

Textbooks and conversations change before the law

North Korean schools, workplaces and neighborhood watch units have reportedly been teaching people to regard South Koreans as foreigners rather than compatriots. Neighborhood watch units organize groups of households and serve as a channel for political instructions and monitoring.

Teachers were reportedly told in April 2024 to cross out prohibited words in textbooks before full replacements were ready. By September 2025, instructions to state agencies extended to maps: the replacements centered North Korea and shaded South Korea gray.

A resident of North Hamgyong province, speaking anonymously, described anxiety about using expressions that had once been routine:

People still see them as the same people, but there's a widespread fear of using those expressions without realizing it,

The resident described people avoiding South Korea's name in ordinary conversation, sometimes gesturing southward or using familiar indirect descriptions. Political lectures reportedly tell people to stop using terms including unification, the Korean nation and one people.

Accounts also describe prolonged self criticism assignments and detention involving people who used prohibited expressions alongside other alleged offenses. The exact grounds and procedures in those cases could not be confirmed. For residents, the reported fear concerns an accidental phrase becoming a reason for official scrutiny.

Jung Kyo-jin, a visiting research fellow at Korea University's Center for North Korean and Unification Studies, argues that the doctrine also targets the circulation of South Korean entertainment. He said defining South Korea as an enemy state "is also aimed at blocking the spread of the Korean Wave inside North Korea." The Korean Wave means the popularity of South Korean music, films and television dramas.

A border policy meets missing markers and minefields

The constitutional language arrives alongside physical changes at the frontier. North Korea has been building permanent fortifications since April 2024, including fences, tactical roads, minefields and barriers against tanks. South Korean lawmakers, citing military figures, have estimated that about 960,000 landmines were planted along the border since 2024.

Rachel Minyoung Lee, a senior fellow with the Stimson Center's Korea Program and 38 North, describes Pyongyang's immediate priority as completing the fortification of what it now regards as its southern border. That assessment connects the constitutional wording with construction already visible along the Demilitarized Zone.

The Military Demarcation Line, or MDL, is the line established under the armistice that halted the Korean War. The Demilitarized Zone extends roughly two kilometers on either side. Locating the line precisely on the ground has become difficult because many of its original markers have disappeared.

Of 1,292 numbered markers originally established, only about 200 are believed identifiable today, roughly 15 percent. South Korea and the United Nations Command use operational reference lines built from different combinations of old maps, surviving markers and modern geographical data. North Korea has its own interpretation.

September 21 mine explosions injured three South Korean military personnel near the western MDL. South Korea's military said an investigation with the United Nations Command found that North Korean antipersonnel mines had been deliberately placed south of the line; Pyongyang denied responsibility. Seoul proposed military talks in November 2025 to clarify the MDL, but North Korea has not engaged with those proposals.

The revision reaches beyond borders and weapons

North Korea has shortened the document's formal name from Socialist Constitution to Constitution, reversing a title used since 1972. Its preamble also removes the earlier extended tributes to the achievements of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, Kim Jong Un's grandfather and father.

The revised preamble still identifies Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism as the state's guiding ideology. Article 9 also requires North Korea to conduct all activities under the leadership of the Workers' Party. The rewritten text combines changes in constitutional presentation with continued party leadership.

Economic and social provisions have changed as well. The comparison with the 2023 constitution records the removal of language describing North Korea as a country without taxes and its workers as unfamiliar with unemployment. The health provision replaces explicit references to universal free treatment, assigned physician districts and preventive medicine with broader commitments to the socialist health system and better medical services.

Article 26 places duties on the state to support balanced local development, modernize local industry and help cities and counties use their resources. New defense provisions require advances in military science and technology and preparation of the whole population for war.

What changes for diplomacy and military risk

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung has repeatedly sought dialogue, while Pyongyang has rebuffed those approaches. Removing reunification from the constitution narrows the shared political language that earlier inter-Korean agreements used. Sung Ki-young, a senior research fellow at the Institute for National Security Strategy, warned in a June 2024 analysis that abandoning the former unification policy could weaken the foundation of those agreements.

The Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security sees possible consequences for negotiations with Washington. It assesses that North Korea may seek arms control talks, which would discuss limits on weapons, rather than negotiations beginning with an expectation that it surrender its nuclear arsenal. It also warns that Pyongyang could seek a peace agreement between states to replace the armistice.

Military development has continued alongside the legal changes. Kim's October 29, 2026, drone and missile demonstrations combined unmanned aircraft, missile launches and heavy rocket artillery, while he called for faster development of drones and artificial intelligence. Those activities extend the modernization agenda reflected in the revised defense provisions.

Lami Kim, Korea Chair at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, has warned that stalled communication makes local incidents harder to contain:

With Pyongyang seemingly determined not to engage with Seoul, the absence of reliable communication channels increases the danger that a minor incident or miscalculation could escalate into war.

For soldiers operating near uncertain boundary lines, the immediate issue is practical: construction, mines and suspected crossings can bring armed forces into contact. The new constitution gives Pyongyang a stronger domestic legal framework for its border policy while military communication remains inactive.

Key Points

• North Korea adopted the revised constitution on March 22 and 23, 2026; South Korea released the text on May 6.
• Article 2 defines territory bordering South Korea but leaves the precise land and maritime boundaries unspecified.
• Reunification provisions and references to governing the northern half of Korea have been removed.
• Kim receives explicit nuclear command authority and can delegate nuclear use powers to a national command body.
• The revision expands his authority over legislation, assembly deputies and senior officials.
• Reported changes in textbooks, maps and political education have already brought the separation policy into daily life.
• Border fortification and inactive military communication channels increase the difficulty of managing local incidents.