North Korea quietly dropped its longtime goal of Korean reunification from its constitution for the first time after 70 years, signaling a major change in its self-conception.

An academic revealed at a press conference hosted by the South Korean Ministry of Unification that North Korea changed its constitution to drop its commitment to reunification, the Financial Times reported. Pyongyang had long defined itself within a larger revolutionary struggle to unite the Korean peninsula under the banner of Juche, a branch of communism stressing economic self-sufficiency and nationalism, which it claims has only been thwarted by the intervention of imperialist U.S. forces.