South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol urged military officials to deter North Korea from pursuing unification by “communizing” the South on Wednesday, visiting an army command that oversees a quarter-million troops amid joint summertime drills with the U.S. 

Yoon called the ROK Army Ground Operations Command the “vanguard of unification” during the visit, referring to his new unification doctrine that calls for spreading freedom to the DPRK and combating “anti-state forces.”

The president met with both South Korean and U.S. troops and “urged thorough combined readiness to prevent North Korea from daring to challenge us,” according to a Presidential Office press