Seoul, Jul 22 (IANS): Tae Yong-ho, the new Secretary General of the presidential advisory council on unification, on Monday, vowed efforts to let North Koreans understand South Korea's efforts to craft a peaceful unification vision based on a national consensus.

Tae, a former North Korean Deputy Ambassador to Britain, was appointed by President Yoon Suk Yeol last week as the Chief of the Secretariat of the Peaceful Unification Advisory Council, Yonhap news agency reported.

He has become the first North Korean defector to serve in the deputy ministerial post since the council was established in 1980.

At the inaugural ceremony, Tae accused North Korea of increasing animosity toward South Korea and denying efforts to pursue a peaceful unification, as North Korean leader Kim Jong-un declared inter-Korean ties as those between "two states hostile to each other."

Against this backdrop, Tae said that he would do his best to provide good policy proposals to Yoon and build a national consensus on unification. South Korea is working on a new unification initiative based on liberal democracy.

"I will also do my best to let North Korean people get to know the national consensus (on unification) built from the bottom," Tae said.

He said that his appointment to the post sent a message to North Korea that South Korea has a firm commitment to seeking peaceful unification with North Korea.

Tae fled to South Korea in 2016 in a high-profile defection by a ranking North Korean diplomat. He was elected in the affluent district of Gangnam in Seoul in 2020 as a lawmaker of the ruling People Power Party but failed to secure a second term in the April parliamentary elections.