President Park Geun-hye urged North Korea on Wednesday to join South Korea’s efforts to build trust and lay the groundwork for the potential unification of the divided Korean Peninsula.

Park also pressed North Korea again to abandon its nuclear weapons program, calling it “the biggest stumbling block” to the development of inter-Korean ties.

“North Korea’s nuclear program is an urgent issue that must be resolved,” Park said in a speech during an Armed Forces Day ceremony at the military headquarters in Daejeon, some 150 kilometers south of Seoul.

Her comments came a day after Glyn Davies, the top U.S. nuclear envoy, arrived in Seoul for talks with his South Korean counterpart on how to jump-start the long-stalled talks meant to end North Korea’s nuclear program.

Davies said in Beijing after talks with his Chinese counterpart that North Korea is accused of “even more directly rejecting” calls by its neighbors and the international community to honor its earlier pledges for denuclearization. The U.S. envoy is on a three-nation Asian trip that will also take him to Japan on Wednesday.

Last week, North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Su-yong said in an address to the U.N. General Assembly that the impasse over the country’s nuclear weapons program will be resolved if the U.S. ends its “hostile policy” toward the North.

North Korea has repeatedly vowed to develop its economy and nuclear arsenal in tandem, viewing its nuclear programs as a powerful deterrent against what it claims is Washington’s hostile policy toward it.

Park also called on the military to have a sense of duty in laying the groundwork for the potential unification of the peninsula and ensuring that North Korean people can lead a rich life.

Still, she did not elaborate on how South Korea’s military can help ordinary North Koreans lead a rich life in a country that has long been accused of grave human rights abuses.

Park called on North Korea last week to improve its human rights conditions in her address to the U.N. General Assembly, in the clearest sign that North Korea’s human rights issue is her top priority in dealing with the communist country.

Park’s predecessors and liberals have shied away from the issue out of fear that it could strain inter-Korean relations.

She also urged the military to address ill practices, referring to a series of deaths in the military blamed on bullying, harassment and assaults of junior enlisted soldiers by their seniors in barracks.

Also Wednesday, Park called for strong deterrence based on South Korea’s alliance with the United States, saying it can induce North Korea to choose a path of change. (Yonhap)