South Korea’s Unification Ministry said Wednesday it would shift focus next year from pursuing inter-Korean talks to preparing for unification with North Korea, The Christian Science Monitor reports.

That announcement is likely to raise the ire of the North and its ally China. It comes as South Korean President Lee Myung-bak said that the South must resolve the problem of the North’s nuclear program through six-party talks, even while stressing the importance of military readiness.

Tensions have been high on the Korean peninsula. The North shelled the South’s Yeonpyeong Island last month, killing four people, including two civilians. Before that, the South accused the North of torpedoing a warship in March, killing 46 sailors. The South’s military drills in recent weeks have provoked increasingly strong rhetoric from the North, which is in the process of a power change.

The Unification Ministry’s new strategy came in a policy report for 2011 delivered to the president. The Financial Times reports that Unification Minister Hyun In-taek said the South would work to improve conditions for ordinary North Koreans as it prepares for reunification. The two Koreas have technically been in a state of war since the two sides signed an armistice in 1953.

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