North Korea on Wednesday posted a revised constitution online that removes references to reunification with South Korea and defines its southern neighbor as a separate country.

SEOUL, Nov. 11 (UPI) -- North Korea on Wednesday posted a revised constitution online that removes references to reunification with South Korea and defines its southern neighbor as a separate country, as tensions persist over the inter-Korean border.

The text appeared on the North's official propaganda website Naenara, which identifies it as amended at a March 23 session of North Korea's rubber-stamp legislature.

The document largely matches the revised constitution South Korea's Unification Ministry obtained and made public in May. The previous version had been removed from Naenara in March 2024, according to Yonhap News Agency.

The revisions reflect North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's declaration in late 2023 that inter-Korean relations were those of two hostile states. In January 2024, he ordered constitutional references to peaceful reunification and national unity removed.

However, the revised constitution does not explicitly designate South Korea a hostile state.

Article 2 of the updated text defines the territory of North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, as extending from its borders with China and Russia in the north to South Korea in the south, including associated territorial waters and airspace.

"The Democratic People's Republic of Korea shall never allow any infringement on its territory," it says.

The provision does not specify the precise land or maritime boundaries between the two Koreas.

The posting comes as tensions remain high inside the Demilitarized Zone, where North Korean troops have been building roads, erecting fences and laying mines.

Land mine explosions in September wounded three South Korean military personnel, two seriously. Seoul's military concluded that North Korean troops had planted the mines south of the Military Demarcation Line, a finding Pyongyang rejects.

South Korea last month proposed military talks to jointly verify the location of the MDL, restore military communication lines and prevent accidental clashes.

At sea, North Korea has also long disputed the Northern Limit Line, the de facto maritime boundary in the Yellow Sea drawn unilaterally by the U.S.-led United Nations Command after the 1950-53 Korean War.

The surrounding waters have been the site of deadly naval clashes. In January 2024, Kim called the line "illegal" and warned that violations of the North's territory would constitute a "war provocation."

Pyongyang has been expanding its naval capabilities, commissioning two new 5,000-ton destroyers this year and testing submarine-launched missiles. On Tuesday, state media reported a high-speed torpedo test, with the weapon scheduled for deployment in early 2027.