SEOUL: South Korea is abandoning a "denuclearisation first" policy in favour of a "peace first" approach towards North Korea, Unification Minister Chung Dong-young said on Thursday (Jul 23), while retaining the eventual goal of a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula. He said Seoul had replaced that approach with one prioritising an initial halt to North Korea's nuclear activities. South Korea is developing a strategy that would initially seek to freeze North Korea's nuclear programme, Chung said, arguing that continued delays would allow Pyongyang to expand its nuclear arsenal. Chung said there was still "strategic demand" in both North Korea and the United States for renewed talks. He has also proposed referring to North Korea as "Choson", an abbreviation of its formal name, rather than using the customary South Korean term.