S. Korea not seeking N. Korea's collapse

South Korea is not seeking North Korea's collapse, a top Seoul official in charge of relations with Pyongyang said Thursday, Yonhap News Agency reported."I made it clear that we don't have an intent to either harass North Korea or topple North Korea's system," Unification Minister Yu Woo-ik said in an inaugural session of a South Korea and German advisory committee on unification."South Korea is seeking co-prosperity with North Korea in a step toward peaceful unification with North Korea," Yu was quoted as saying. South Korea hopes to learn from the German experience as it prepares for the eventual unification with North Korea.North Korea has repeatedly accused South Korea of plotting to absorb its impoverished northern neighbor as a way to achieve unification of the Korean Peninsula. "Unification through absorption" leads to war," North Korea's Foreign Ministry said in September.The North's angry reaction came after South Korea unveiled the idea of using taxpayer money to help cushion the cost of the potential unification. Asia's fourth-largest economy has almost completed a bill on how to finance unification with one of the poorest countries in the world.Yu also called on North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons programs and embrace changes, noting the nuclear ambition threatens the environment for unification.The two Koreas still remain in a technical state of war following a cease-fire at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.