Why doesn't South Korea give up its claim on North Korea?

[bytebuster]

Why doesn't South Korea give up its claim on North Korea?

By now it's completely obvious that the Korean peninsula won't be reuniting any time soon. It's also quite likely that the South wouldn't want a full reunification anyway given the enormous economic differences between the two countries.

So why won't South Korea officially abandon their claim to the North of the peninsula? What benefit is there in maintaining the charade?

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Simply because abandoning territorial claims will do nothing:

1. It will neither eliminate the military threat of the "North" Korea, nor would it relax the tensions.
2. It requires enormous amounts of legal work, including adopting amendments to the Constitution of Korea.

This is why:

1. Both governments claimed sovereignty over the whole Korea, however in a different manner:
   • Constitution of Korea (Article 3) claims that Republic of Korea has sovereignty over entire Korean Peninsula;
   • Constitution of "North" Korea (Article 1) claims sovereignty over all Korean people. Article 2 talks about "the liberation of the homeland" (obviously, including the Southern Koreans) from "imperialist aggressors".
2. There is no peace treaty signed yet (the 1953 Agreement deals with armistice only);
3. Retracting the territorial claims can be done on a mutual basis, probably as a part of Peace Treaty, when both sides to retract their claims;
4. There are reasons to think that the "North" Korea is not going to keep with its promise, should any be given.
5. Most likely, adopting amendments to the cornerstone articles of the Constitution would require conducting a National referendum and convincing the majority of the citizens. We could safely assume that there is a powerful lobby against that: the Wikipedia article for Korean reunification contains some introductory links that indicate controversy in public opinion.