The Salvation Army, an international Christian charitable organization, is ready to mobilize as many resources as it can to provide humanitarian assistance to North Korea if the ongoing dialogue opens up the country's borders, the organization's head said Wednesday. 

"I think it important to continue building (a) relationship with the churches in North Korea. The churches and other charitable organization and NGOs need to prepare for the day when we can go back into North Korea," The Salvation Army's leader, General Andre Cox said in a press conference.

He is visiting Seoul to celebrate this year's 110th anniversary of the foundation of the South Korean branch of the Salvation Army, which has a worldwide membership of more than 1 million people. Cox was elected to the top position in 2013 and is to retire in August.

The general was positive that the current mood for dialogue involving North Korea, the South and the United States may be able to bring down the barricade surrounding the North.

"If this current direction continues, I think that that day may come. I remember in my lifetime, it was said, I am certain, the Iron Curtain will never come down. I still believe the barriers can come down here too."

The Salvation Army and similar organizations are "uniquely placed" to play a key assisting role in the event of reconciliation with the North, according to the general.

"My encouragement, particularly to the churches and the Salvation Army, is to identify where are our strength. So that we focus on what we could be able to bring," he said. "If the opportunity ever came, the international Salvation Army would make Korea the center of the world and we would be ready to mobilize as much as we can, both here in Korea and worldwide to support."

"For the churches and for the Salvation Army, the first priority will not be go in and try and bring in new philosophies to the North, but to be (a) living expression of the gospel message in providing whatever support the (North Korean) people need without conditions and without discrimination," Cox also said.

He also expressed his special attention to North Korea, saying, "Prior to the division of the (Korean) war, we had a much stronger Salvation Army in the North that we had in the southern part."

Cox traveled twice to North Korea as part of the Salvation Army's deal with the communist country in 2004 to assist in the installation of machines to produce yogurt from goat milk in North Korea. The machines functioned brilliantly for several years, but he has not been updated on whether they are still in operation, he said.

"All of these were tiny steps ... but I believe we must be a generation of bridge builders, (not) barricade builders," he said.

Recalling his visit to the North, he said the country may be in immediate need of nutritional support for the smallest children and the eldest people, as well as medical supplies. Over the long-term, the North may need external help in building a sustainable agriculture sector, he said.

Cox also urged South Korean Christians to recover their spiritual ardency for which they were once praised across the global Christian community.

"In my lifetime, I have known Korea as being a place of great spiritual revival and strong expression of Christianity. I get a sense that spiritual drive that was a testimony to the world is maybe not as strong as it used to be," he said, referring to rising materialism and secularism here.

"So I encourage the churches (here) to be strong. ... We need to break with the spirit of the world and be true to our calling and Christians need to stand up and be counted and make a difference," he urged. (Yonhap)