Kim Jong Un Publishes Work on Stepping up Construction of Stock-breeding Base in Sepho Area

    Pyongyang, January 30 (KCNA) -- Marshal Kim Jong Un published work "Let Us Expedite the Construction of the Livestock Breeding Base in the Sepho Area and Bring about a New Turn in Developing Animal Husbandry" on Jan. 28.

    In the work he stressed the need to provide the people, who have overcome all sorts of difficulties and trials together with the party, entrusting everything to it, with an affluent and happy life with no more to desire in the world at an early date.

    The most important task facing us today is to rapidly improve the standard of people's living, he said, adding to this end it is imperative to solve the food problem by developing stock-breeding and fishery while doing farming well.

    The Workers' Party of Korea set forth the policy of reclaiming the Sepho tableland to develop stock-breeding and turning it into a large-scale stock-breeding base, he noted.

    To reclaim the Sepho tableland and turn it into a stock-breeding base is one of the earnest behests of President Kim Il Sung and leader Kim Jong Il, he said.

    Saying that though we have made big achievements in the construction of the stock-breeding base in Sepho area, we still have huge tasks to do in the future, he clarified tasks to be fulfilled and ways for doing so.

    The most important issue in building Sepho area into the large-scale stock-breeding base is to improve soil quality and create pasture well, he said, and continued:

    As Sepho area is exposed to strong wind all the year round, it is necessary to carry out the work for creating windbreaks in a planned and prospective way.

    Construction projects such as dwelling houses, sheds for domestic animals and public buildings and roads should be stepped up and be completed qualitatively.

    Oil, building materials, manpower and equipment needed for the construction of the stock-breeding base should be provided on a preferential basis.

    Good preparations should be made for operating the base.

    The work of reclaiming the tableland and building a stock-breeding base is a project to be pushed forward with the involvement of all members of the party and the state.

    It is also important to rapidly develop the nation's overall stock-breeding while stepping up the construction of the stock-breeding base in Sepho area.

    The party channels efforts into the construction of the base to attain an important objective to bring about a fresh turn in the development of the nation's overall stock-breeding with this construction as a momentum.

    It is also necessary to put the production at the modern stock-breeding bases that had already been built under the leadership of the party on a regular footing.

    It is the duty and moral obligation of we, officials who are soldiers and disciples of Kim Jong Il to put the production at the stock-breeding bases that had already been built on a regular footing and make people realize his loving care and solicitude in their actual life.

    To put production at the stock-breeding bases on a regular footing is not just a business work but an important political work for preserving and glorifying the leadership exploits of Kim Jong Il.

    The work for boosting the output of livestock products should be pushed forward as an all-people movement.

    To develop stock-breeding, it is also important to solve the issues of breeds of domestic animals and feed, improve breeding and establish a thorough anti-epizootic measure, he said, elaborating on it.

    Many domestic animals of good stock should be produced through intensified work for raising domestic animals, he noted, and went on:

    It is also necessary to conduct brisk scientific and technological exchanges with other countries to introduce into the country domestic animals of superior stock and rear them after going through trial stages.

    A way of solving the issue of feed for domestic animals is to carry out the party's policy of obtaining meat from grass.

    To this end it is imperative to create vast pasture in every place.

    Grain feed needed for stock-breeding should be ensured through good farming.

    The production of bean cake should be increased by cultivating bean extensively and various protein feed sources including insects rich in protein content be actively explored and put into use.

    The way of producing feed additives relying on locally available raw materials should be studied and completed to ensure the supply of feed additives necessary for operating the stock-breeding bases.

    The production of feed for domestic animals should be industrialized by dint of modern science and technology.

    The raising and tending of domestic animals should be done on a scientific and rational way.

    The role of stock-breeding scientific research institutions should be enhanced in establishing the scientific way of raising and tending.

    In order to put the raising and tending of domestic animals on a scientific basis it is necessary for officials and other working people in the field of stock-breeding to acquire professional scientific and technological knowledge and technical skills.

    The anti-epizootic work is what keeps stock-breeding alive.

    Not a slightest concession should be allowed in issues concerning anti-epizootic work.

    Kim Jong Un underlined the need for party organizations to increase their roles in carrying out the party's policy on revitalizing the stocking-breeding and improving the standard of people's living. -0-        

U.S. Should Apologize for Its Anti-DPRK Conspiratorial Document and Retract It: KCNA Commentary

    Pyongyang, January 29 (KCNA) -- The "report of the Inquiry Commission" on the human rights performance in the DPRK, which served as a basis of the anti-DPRK "human rights resolution" rammed through the plenary meeting of the 69th UN General Assembly in December last year by the hostile forces, is now being ridiculed and censured by the international community. Sin Tong Hyok, who had come out as a primary "testifier" when cooking up the "report", confessed that he had made false "testimonies." This brought to light once again the absurdity and reactionary nature of the U.S.-led anti-DPRK "human rights" racket.
    Leading media of the Western countries including the U.S., the U.K., France and Germany, commenting on Sin's confession, claimed that they doubt the credibility of the "report of the Inquiry Commission" and the "human rights resolution" based on it and they cannot believe the remarks of the "defectors from the north" who were forced by backstage forces to tell lies. They also asserted that the U.S., which tried to refer the "human rights issue of north Korea" to the International Criminal Court, is finding itself in a very awkward position due to Sin's confession.
    The U.S. which had been desperate in its anti-DPRK "human rights" campaign by taking "defectors from the north" to the UN and other international arenas sustained bitter shame before the international community. "Defectors from the north" reportedly hesitate to join in the "human rights" conspiratorial farce.
    This is a natural outcome of the base and impudent act of the U.S. which attempted to mock at the conscience of the world public by internationalizing and hyping the non-existence "human rights issue" of someone. It also clearly proves that the UN "human rights resolution" is no more than a product of conspiracy as it does not deserve even a passing note.

This not withstanding, Washington and its followers, far from making an apology for their wrongdoings the truth behind which has been disclosed, are behaving in a base and vicious manner in a bid to justify their bankrupt anti-DPRK "human rights" resolution, crying out for continued international pressure upon the DPRK and the like.

This is no more than ridiculous piffle of the brazen-faced ones.
    The former chairman and the special rapporteur of the "Inquiry Commission" who impudently behaved as servants of the U.S. are busy touring here and there, making clumsy excuses and asserting the "report" based on the testimonies made by "defectors from the north" and the "resolution" still remain valid.
    This is nothing but the last-ditch effort to make their farce strongly censured by the international community sound plausible and internationalize the "human rights issue" of the DPRK at any cost.

As already disclosed, those who cooked up the "report" are all bribed political swindlers and despicable human scum. Christopher Black, member of the Law Society of the Canadian Senate and an international criminal lawyer, in his article titled "North Korea, UN, Declaration of War" claimed that one cannot but be shocked at the fact that Kirby, Biserko and Darusman, the three members of the Inquiry Commission, all had been involved in operations sponsored by the organizations working for the CIA.

    As far as the former chairman of the "Inquiry Commission" Kirby is concerned, he is an old sexual maniac who earned an ill-fame for his decades-long homosexuality. He, under the mask of "lawyer", even cried out for legitimacy of homosexual marriage censured even by people of his country and has been keen on perpetrating only politically-motivated frauds and swindle. He is also a heinous anti-DPRK confrontation element with an inveterate bad habit of interpreting its system in a Nazi manner.

    Darusman is an opportunist who became a member of the Golkar party in Indonesia which earned an ill-fame by murdering with the CIA help 500 000 communists and people linked to leftist and labour circles in 1965. He is also an adviser to the United States Indonesia Society, a U.S. government front group and a member of the Global Leadership Foundation whose patrons include such unsavory characters as George W. Bush and Lech Walesa.

As seen above, the three members are all the worst betes noires rare to be found in the world who bartered away their dignity as human beings for the money paid by the U.S. The confession of the "defector from the north" again clearly proved that all the remarks made by "defectors" in ambiguous manner are unbelievable and the "report of the Inquiry Commission" is no more than a conspiratorial document. So, it is needless to say that all the anti-DPRK "human rights resolutions" railroaded on the basis of them are invalid. The U.S.-led hostile forces should make an apology for cooking up the anti-DPRK "resolution" based on lies told by Sin and other betes noires and retract it at once.

Birth of Regular Armed Force

On February 8, 1948, the Korean People’s Army, a regular armed force of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, declared its founding.

The Anti-Japanese People’s Guerrilla Army, the predecessor of the KPA, was founded on April 25, 1932 by Kim Il Sung, eternal President of the DPRK, when Korea was under the Japanese military occupation (1905-1945). Under his command, the AJPGA, without backing of a state and support of a regular army, waged bloody guerrilla warfare against the one-million-strong Japanese Kwantung Army which had been posing as the “Leader” of Asia and liberated the country on August 15, 1945.

Immediately after the liberation, Kim Il Sung vigorously pushed ahead with the building of a regular army on the basis of the precious experience of army building gained in the flames of the anti-Japanese armed struggle.

Building a regular national army was an indispensable requisite under the prevailing situation in Korea which was striving to build an independent and sovereign state. Moreover, it emerged as an urgent task, as the United States had stationed its aggressor troops in the southern half of Korea in its attempt to realize its wild dream of world domination.

Kim Il Sung started the building of a regular army with the training of military and political officers.

With a keen insight into the necessity of leading commanders for the regular armed force, he assigned most of the anti-Japanese guerrilla fighters to the regular army building to constitute the backbone of the regular army to be built and play the leading role in the training of military cadres.

He also set up institutes of military education and developed them on an expansion basis.

He initiated the establishment of the Pyongyang Institute, the first regular institute of military education and the first base for training political and military officers for the building of a modern regular armed force, and personally chose the site for it. Early in January 1946 he went to the institute to give its instructors and cadets the first lecture of the first term, and the following month made a congratulatory speech at the opening ceremony of the institute. As an honorary headmaster he directed its military educational work and took care of living of the cadets.

In order to train the military officers of all services and arms he separated from the Pyongyang Institute the training of military officers and established the Central Security Officers School in July 1946. He visited the school several times and ensured that it conducted its military education in the Korean way, without following the examples of other countries. He also set its educational period as one year, instead of three years in other countries, so as to meet the requirement of the situation and actual condition in Korea.

He made sure that an air force training class, a parent body of the Korean air force, was formed at the Pyongyang Institute in March 1946, and in July the following year the Naval Security Officers School was set up to train naval officers in a far-sighted way.

In this way, the issue of military and political officers which posed as one of the most difficult problems in the building of a regular armed force in Korea was brought to a brilliant settlement.

Kim Il Sung organized core detachments of the modern regular armed force and, on the basis of this, expanded them into necessary units of services and arms.

In mid-August 1946, he elucidated the need of organizing core detachments, organizational principles, their scale and locations and named them the security officers training centres. Therefore, the security officers training centres were organized with the anti-Japanese fighters and graduates from the Pyongyang Institute as their backbone, and with the public-security corps, railway guards and frontier guards organized in different parts of Korea right after its liberation as their parent body.

Kim Il Sung also paid deep attention to the organization of the units of services and arms necessary for the building of the regular armed force.

He made sure that local branches were organized in many parts of the country by recruiting aviation technicians and young people of worker and peasant origin to be amalgamated into the Korean Air Society in December 1945. In August 1947 he organized an aviation corps at the Pyongyang Institute, first of its kind in Korea, with graduates from the air force training class formed in the institute and air technicians.

He also exerted great efforts to the building of the naval force. He ensured that the Maritime Security Force was formed in 1946 for coastal defence, and set up similar organizations in the eastern and western coastal areas by combining the local forces.

He vigorously pushed ahead with the preparations for organizing the artillery, military engineering, signal corps and other main units of the services.

Kim Il Sung paid close attention to laying the foundations of an independent armaments industry.

Although there were many places and units for him to visit soon after the liberation, he, first of all, visited a munitions manufactory in Pyongyang early in October 1945.

At that time, Korea had no foundation for the munitions industry. It lacked technology, equipment and funds, as well as technicians and skilled workers, needed for building a munitions factory.

However, by overcoming difficulties of all descriptions, he set up from scratch the first munitions factory with a plan to equip the regular armed force with modern weapons and technical equipment.

Under his guidance the working class produced munitions and grenades as well as modern naval vessels by their own efforts.     

Finally, on February 8, 1948, a grand military parade was held in Pyongyang to declare the founding of the Korean People’s Army, a regular armed force. It was the event of great significance in the shaping of the destiny of socialist Korea and its development.

Two years after its founding, the KPA defeated the US, who had been boasting of the “strongest” in the world, in the Korean war (1950–1953) and honourably defended the sovereignty and dignity of Korea.

After the war it has always smashed military threats and acts of provocation by the US in the decades-long showdown with it, thus demonstrating to the world its might as an ever-victorious army.

The Korean People’s Army is now prevailing over the US and its followers who are hell-bent on provoking war in all parts of the world, while winning one victory after another in accomplishing its socialist cause and reliably securing the peace on the Korean peninsula. 

Along with the invincible KPA, February 8, 1948 will remain etched in history.

Great Nationalist

A Chinese newspaper once wrote about Kim Jong Il: After the death of the DPRK’s Supreme Leader Kim Jong Il (December 17, 2011) many countries around the world responded to it differently. Whether the response is the expression of condolences or interest, it reflects his important position in the international politics. Some expressed condolences out of respect for their friend and others showed interest out of respect for their enemy. How does he enjoy world respect? The fundamental reason is that he was a great nationalist.

Now the DPRK is recognized by the international community as an independent powerful country and its people as a nation strong in the spirit of independence.

It can be said that the Korean people’s national self-respect is a spirit Kim Jong Il imbued into them by devoting his all.

To cope with the imperialist allied forces’ extreme anti-socialist, anti-DPRK offensive, he consolidated the country’s defence capabilities in all aspects upholding the banner of Songun. Thus he prevented war from breaking out in the Korean peninsula and defended the destiny of the Korean nation.

Ours is a world of power where high-handedness, violence and injustice are so rampant that a nation can hardly avoid war if it is to safeguard its sovereignty and dignity. It is the tragic reality that a powerful country’s demand becomes that of its followers and holding out against it will inevitably bring their sanctions and military intervention.

In the present times when many countries, afraid of the high-handedness and arbitrariness of the United States, hesitate to say what they have to say and act under its baton, Kim Jong Il alone squarely defied the only super power of the world.

Elated with its successes in the Gulf War and Balkan War, the United States created nuclear crisis in the Korean peninsula from the 1990s and made ceaseless provocations to ignite another war there.

It worked out various scenarios for Korean war including OPLAN 5027 and made persistent efforts to put them into reality. However, only failure and frustration were visited upon it each time. It was because the DPRK was led by Kim Jong Il, a peerless General of Songun, and possessed of great military might which had been consolidated under his leadership.

In retrospect, he was always on a long march of Songun for his country and nation. From January 1995 when he held the banner of Songun higher to 2011, the last year of his life, he inspected as many as 2 490 military units.

Thanks to his Songun-based leadership, the DPRK could strengthen its military might in all aspects. It could arm itself with nuclear deterrent to cope with the ever-increasing nuclear threat by the United States.

This was a great event which ushered in a historic turn in carving out the destiny of the Korean nation. In other words, this put an end to the US nuclear threat lasting scores of years and no one dared to cause offence to the Korean nation.

Leading the people to overcome worst trials and hardships and demonstrate to the world the might of the DPRK as a powerful independent country, Kim Jong Il ushered in a new era of building a prosperous nation.

It was his plan to raise the status of the DPRK, a dignified, political and military power, to that of an economic giant so that its people can live with nothing to envy in the world. In pursuance of this plan he unfolded a grand blueprint for building a thriving country. Under his leadership, the DPRK realigned all its fields into large-sized standardized plots, introduced CNC and other cutting-edge technologies into factories and enterprises and succeeded in launching an artificial earth satellite by its own efforts, startling the world.

Kim Jong Il also performed enormous exploits for accomplishing the cause of national reunification, the greatest desire of the Korean nation.

By bringing about two north-south summit meetings for the first time in the history of Korea’s division and the June 15 Joint Declaration and October 4 Declaration, its action programme, whose gist is the principle of By Our Nation Itself, he opened up a bright prospect for Korea’s reunification.

Kim Jong Il who had defended the destiny of his country and nation and assured them a bright future was a great nationalist.

The Korean people will surely build a reunified prosperous country, which was his lifetime wish.

World Intangible Cultural Property―Arirang

Arirang has a long history, a folk song symbolic of the Korean nation.

It was included in the list of world intangible cultural property.

Arirang Arirang Arariyo

I am crossing Arirang Pass.

You who have deserted me shall suffer

Footsore within a couple of miles.

The folk song is based on a legend about the tragic love story of Songbu and her boyfriend Rirang. It had been sung country-wide for so long that about 36 regional variants appeared.

The lyrics, soft and emotional, give a psychological portrayal of romantic love such as the girl’s sorrow for parting from her sweetheart, yearning for him and hopes of their reunion. They reflect  the grief and grudge of the working people in the exploiter society and their desires for happiness.

As it is easy to learn and sing it, all Koreans know the song. It is popular all over the Korean peninsula and in other parts of the world where they live.

It is given particular prominence in the DPRK where the importance of national traditions and cultural heritage is acknowledged. It has been adapted by art groups in the capital and provinces for various genres of theatrical art, including orchestral music and song, symphony and dance. It also assumes important functions of description in feature films including the multi-part film The Nation and Destiny.

It won worldwide fame after its adaptation in April 2002 as a grand mass gymnastics and artistic performance. The namesake performance was a great annual hit and, in August 2007, registered in the Guinness Book of Records.

Wide publicity is given to the song through production of numerous publications in print and digital form, and Pyongyang Kim Won Gyun Conservatory hosts cultural events with relation to it once or twice a year.

In September 2012 a concert and seminar were held on the theme of the Tradition of Arirang and Innovation.

Now in the DPRK there are many variants of the song, such as Arirang of Army-People Unity, Arirang of Chol Pass, Arirang of Prosperity and Arirang of Reunification.

It is also famous in many other countries including Russia, the United States, France, Japan and Germany. Many foreign composers sing in high praise of its beautiful melody, and it is a prime favourite with symphony orchestras and musical companies of several countries.

The song is so familiar to the Korean nation that it is otherwise called the Arirang nation. It is recognized as a priceless property peculiar and common to the nation.

From olden times it has helped the Korean people make friends with one another, express their feelings and emotion, and tide over agonies. Singing the folk song, they shared good and bad times and strived for national unity and cooperation.

Arirang took on a new, deeper meaning in the first half of the last century, the period of national distress for the Korean people when they were subjected to all sorts of troubles and misfortunes under Japan’s military occupation (1905-1945).

During the period they regarded the song as the epitome of the nation and kept singing it as a way of preserving their national identity. For example, it was the theme song of a Korean film produced in 1926 and its title was Arirang. In 1936 when Son Ki Jong placed first in the men’s marathon at the Summer Olympics in Germany, the Korean audience sang this folk song to demonstrate their national identity worldwide. During the anti-Japanese armed struggle for national liberation the soldiers of the Korean People’s Revolutionary Army sang it to foster the spirit of patriotism and harden up their determination to annihilate the enemy.

The song also helped promoting the common interests of the Korean people and their national concord. This is illustrated by the fact that in 2000 the Korean sportspeople from the north and the south sang it together as they, all in a group, entered the venue of the opening ceremony of the 27^th Olympic Games held in Sydney. On other occasions, such as pan-national concerts for reunification, those from the north, the south and abroad sang the song time and again to express the sorrow of national division and their common desire for the country’s reunification. All of this has convinced the world more firmly that Korea is a homogeneous nation with one language and one culture.

Arirang is a worthy addition to the storehouse of world intangible cultural property. 

The DPRK in 2015

For the Korean people the new year 2015 will be a year of great significance, in which they will mark the 70^th anniversaries of national liberation (August 15, 1945) and founding of the Workers’ Party of Korea (October 10, 1945).

In New Year Address for 2015 supreme leader Kim Jong Un called upon his people to determinedly thwart the challenges and manoeuvres by hostile forces and score a signal success in the struggle to defend socialism and on all fronts of building a thriving nation, thus celebrating the 70^th anniversaries of national liberation and founding of the Party as revolutionary, auspicious events. He advanced the slogan “Let us all turn out in the general offensive to hasten final victory in the revolutionary spirit of Paektu!”

In hearty response to his address the Korean people are full of determination to become honourable victors in the general offensive to exalt the dignity of their socialist country and promote its prosperity on the strength of ideology, arms and science and technology.

This year Korea will further consolidate its country’s invincible might as a socialist political and ideological power.

It is invariable will of the Korean people to hold up President Kim Il Sung and Chairman Kim Jong Il forever as the sun of Juche, staunchly championing and adding eternal brilliance to their immortal revolutionary exploits.

In this year of the 70^th anniversary of the Party, which organizes and guides all victories of the Korean people, it will set up a new milestone in improving its leadership ability and fighting efficiency.

Kim Jong Un put special emphasis on the need to ensure that the people-first principle runs through the whole of Party work as appropriate for its nature as a motherly party to make the climate of respecting, loving and depending on them pervade it and Party work focus on improving their living standards.

This year Korea will further demonstrate its country’s might as a military power.

The Korean People’s Army will thoroughly establish the Party’s monolithic command system across the entire army and implement to the letter the Party’s four-point strategic line and three major tasks for increasing military strength. It will effect a turnaround in improving the quality of training by eliminating formalism and stereotyped patterns in combat and political training and updating its contents and methods. It will maintain full combat readiness so that it can repulse any provocation by the enemy in one stroke.

In line with the requirements of the prevailing situation, the officers and men of the Korean People’s Internal Security Forces will sharpen the sword for defending the leader, system and people, and members of the Worker-Peasant Red Guards and the Young Red Guards will conduct combat and political training in a real-war atmosphere, thereby beefing up their combat efficiency and getting fully prepared for an all-people resistance so that they can defend their own provinces, counties and villages by themselves.

By carrying out the Party’s line of promoting the two fronts simultaneously, the defence industry sector will step up the efforts to make the munitions production Juche-oriented, modern and scientific and proactively develop and perfect powerful cutting-edge military hardware of Korean style.

This year Korea will give definite precedence to science and technology and effect an upswing in building a socialist economic giant and civilized nation.

It is a determination and will of the Korean leader to rapidly develop all sectors and build a people’s paradise by dint of science and technology.

The scientific research sector will wage a brisk drive for going beyond the cutting edge to produce many valuable findings conducive to developing the economy, increasing defence capability and improving the people’s living standards. Regarding science and technology as their lifeline, all sectors and all units will step up modernization and introduction of information technology in their style, raise the scientific and technological level of officials and working people and vigorously carry on all undertakings by relying on science and technology.

Korea will make maximum use of the existing foundations and all potentials of the self-supporting economy, so as to bring about a turn in improving the people’s living standards and building an economic giant.

Stressing in his address that in this significant year Korea should bring about an upturn in improving the people’s living standards, Kim Jong Un said that the food problem of the people should be resolved and their dietary life improved on a higher level with agricultural production, animal husbandry and fishing as the main thrusts. The light industry sector should work out a strategy for fending for itself and put production at central and local light-industry factories on normal track, so as to supply people, including students and children, with larger amounts and various kinds of quality consumer goods, school things and children’s food, he added.

This year Korea will direct great efforts to relieving the shortage of electricity, a major source of power of the national economy, and strive to shore up its vanguard sectors and key industries.

Along with this, it will foster external economic relations in a multilateral way and accelerate the projects for economic development zones including the Wonsan-Mt. Kumgang international tourist zone.  It will raise a stronger wind of creating the Korean speed in the construction sector so as to build power stations, factories, educational and cultural establishments and dwelling houses as befit the monumental edifices in the era of the Workers’ Party. The whole Party, the entire army and all the people will turn out in the campaign to restore the mountains of the country so as to turn them into “mountains of gold” thickly wooded with trees.

A vigorous spur should be given to the building of a civilized socialist nation, he noted and put forward the tasks to be tackled by the cultural sectors including those of education, sports, art and literature and public health.

The Korean people, in support of his New Year Address, will staunchly strive to glorify this significant year as a year of great victories and revolutionary, auspicious events.

Let’s Open Up a Broad Avenue to Independent Reunification

 “Let the whole nation join efforts to open up a broad avenue to independent reunification in this year of the 70^th anniversary of national liberation!”—this is the slogan put forward by supreme leader Kim Jong Un in his New Year Address for 2015.

In retrospect, seventy years have passed since the Korean nation was divided by outside forces.

In those decades the world has made a tremendous advance and the times have undergone dramatic changes, but the Korean nation has not yet achieved reunification, suffering the pain of division. It is a deplorable fact known to everyone and it is lamentable to everyone. No longer can it bear and tolerate the tragedy of national division that has continued century after century.

Last year the DPRK put forward crucial proposals for improved inter-Korean relations and national reunification and made sincere efforts for their implementation. Its efforts, however, could not bear due fruit owing to the obstructive moves by the anti-reunification forces within and without; instead the north-south relations have been on a headlong rush to aggravation.

It is a steadfast will of the Korean leader that however complicated the situation may be and whatever obstacles and difficulties may stand in its way, Korea will unfailingly achieve national reunification, a lifetime wish of President Kim Il Sung and Chairman Kim Jong Il and the greatest desire of the nation, and build a dignified and prosperous reunified country on this land.

In his address he put forward three tasks to open up this year a broad avenue to independent reunification by concerted efforts of the whole Korean nation.

First, the danger of war should be removed, the tension eased and a peaceful environment created on the Korean peninsula.

The large-scale war games ceaselessly held every year in south Korea are the root cause of the escalating tension on the peninsula and bringing the danger of nuclear war to the Korean nation. It is needless to say that there can be neither trustworthy dialogue nor improved inter-Korean relations in such a gruesome atmosphere in which war drills are staged against the dialogue partner.

To cling to nuclear war drills against the fellow countrymen in collusion with aggressive outside forces is an extremely dangerous act of inviting calamity.

The DPRK will resolutely react against and mete out punishment to any acts of provocation and war moves that infringe upon its sovereignty and dignity.

The south Korean authorities should discontinue all war moves including the reckless military exercises they conduct with foreign forces and choose to ease the tension and create a peaceful environment on the Korean peninsula.

The United States, the very one that divided the Korean nation into two and has imposed the suffering of national division upon it for 70 years, should desist from pursuing the anachronistic policy hostile towards the DPRK and reckless acts of aggression and boldly make a policy switch.

Second, the north and the south should refrain from seeking confrontation of systems while absolutizing their own ideologies and systems but achieve great national unity true to the principle of By Our Nation Itself to satisfactorily resolve the reunification issue in conformity with the common interests of the nation.

If they try to force their ideologies and systems upon each other, they will never settle the national reunification issue in a peaceful way, only bringing confrontation and war.

Though the people-centred socialist system of its own style is the most advantageous, the DPRK does not force it on south Korea and has never done so.

The south Korean authorities should neither seek “unification of systems” that incites distrust and conflict between the north and the south nor insult the other side’s system and make impure solicitation to do harm to their fellow countrymen, travelling here and there.

The north and the south, as they had already agreed, should resolve the national reunification issue in the common interests of the nation transcending the differences in ideology and system.

Third, they should briskly hold dialogue, negotiations and exchanges and make contact to relink the severed ties and blood vessels of the nation and bring about a great turn in inter-Korean relations.

It is the unanimous desire of the fellow countrymen for both sides to stop fighting and pave a new way for reunification by concerted efforts. They should no longer waste time and energy over pointless arguments and trifling matters but write a new chapter in the history of inter-Korean relations.

Nothing is impossible if the Korean nation shares one purpose and joins efforts. On the road for reunification the north and the south had already agreed upon such charter and great programme for reunification as the July 4 Joint Statement, the historic June 15 Joint Declaration and the October 4 Declaration, thus demonstrating to the whole world the nation’s determination and mettle to reunify the country.

Kim Jong Un said: We think that it is possible to resume the suspended high-level contacts and hold sectoral talks if the south Korean authorities are sincere in their stand towards improving inter-Korean relations through dialogue. And there is no reason why we should not hold a summit meeting if the atmosphere and environment for it are created.

In hearty response to his New Year Address the entire Korean nation, who is brimful of fresh confidence and vigour, is determined to turn out together in the nationwide movement for the country’s reunification so as to glorify this year as a landmark in opening up a broad avenue to independent reunification.

It is expected in earnest that the turnaround in Korea’s reunification will be brought about this year, 70 years after the division of the Korean nation