The South Korean government will continue to pursue engagement with North Korea even if it does not respond, President Lee Jae-myung said on Thursday, stating that establishing peace is the fastest path to safeguarding national prosperity.

Speaking by proxy at the Global Korea Forum in Seoul, Lee said that the unresolved division of the peninsula still casts a shadow over South Korea’s legacy of economic growth and democratization.

“The more tangled the thread, the more patience and steady progress are needed to untangle it,” Lee said in the speech, delivered by second deputy national security director Lim Woong-soon.

Lee added