DPRK LEADING NEWSPAPERS PUBLISH JOINT NEW YEAR EDITORIAL

Pyongyang, January 1 (KCNA) -- Rodong Sinmun, Joson Inmingun and Chongnyon Jonwi, leading newspapers of the DPRK, on Sunday published a joint editorial "Glorify this year 2012 as a year of proud victory, a year when an era of prosperity is unfolding, true to the instructions of the great General Kim Jong Il".

The full text of the editorial is as follows:

Having seen out the year 2011 in bitter tears of blood, the service personnel and people of Korea are now seeing in the New Year Juche 101 (2012).

It was a long-standing tradition of our people to extend best wishes for good health to the great leader Kim Jong Il on every New Year's Day and set out on the advance of that year. His august name and benevolent image were a banner of victory that instilled in our people confidence in sure victory and will to achieve it and a source of their mental strength. Now our service personnel and people, turning the great sorrow into one-thousand-fold strength and courage, are embarking on a grand march towards the goal of achieving prosperity in the new century of the Juche era, following the leadership of their supreme leader Kim Jong Un.

That we parted too suddenly and unexpectedly with the great leader Kim Jong Il last year was the greatest loss our nation had suffered in its 5 000-year-long history and the bitterest grief our Party and people had experienced.

The great Kim Jong Il was an outstanding ideologist and theoretician, peerless veteran statesman and brilliant Songun commander who led the revolutionary cause of Juche along the road of victory by dint of his profound ideas and theories and unexcelled leadership, and a great patriot and the benevolent father of the people, who dedicated his revolutionary life entirely to his country and his people. Thanks to his leadership our nation has greeted a golden age of its prosperity unprecedented in its 5 000-year-long history; the Juche idea and the Songun idea, the immortal ideas authored by President Kim Il Sung, have become the ideas guiding the era of independence, the revolutionary traditions of Paektu have been resolutely defended, and the might of our Party, army and country has attained the highest level.

When our revolution was undergoing worst trials and hardships, he steadfastly safeguarded the gains of socialism, valuable heritage the President had bequeathed, and consolidated the political, military and economic foundations for achieving prosperity for all the generations to come; this is shining as the greatest of his achievements in the revolutionary cause of Juche.

Having keenly felt how great the leader, whom they had upheld as the sun of the nation and their father in making the revolution, was, our service personnel and people are now filled with a firm determination to carry through his lifetime intentions and cause.

Last year was a year of victory, featured by radical changes and leap forward taken place in the building of a prosperous and powerful nation under the energetic leadership of Kim Jong Il.

It was an ennobling intention of Kim Jong Il to celebrate the centenary of the birth of President Kim Il Sung as the most auspicious and significant event, which would solemnly declare the victory in the Songun-based great upsurge. In order to bring about a proud victory in 2012, he displayed super-human energy in leading the all-people advance. He continued his on-site guidance tours, up until the last moments of his revolutionary life, to major fronts of the building of a thriving nation, the army posts at the front line and various other parts of the country, thus bringing the 100-year history of the Juche era resplendent with great victories and changes to a close.

Last year significant achievements were made in the great upsurge for improving the people's standard of living, and solid foundations laid for building the country into an economic giant in the 21st century.

Under the great General's tireless leadership, the torch of the industrial revolution in the new century was kindled and our national economy has entered the stage of building a powerful country with the knowledge-based economy. The Huichon Power Station and other monumental edifices to be dedicated to the grand festival in 2012 are being set up in many parts of the country, and the flames of Hamnam, the banner of a fresh grand march, are flaring up fiercely. Amidst the great upsurge for improving the people's standard of living, many light-industry factories were renovated and modern livestock and fish-farming bases and large-size fruit-farming bases, prototypes of their kinds in the new century, were built in various parts of the country; these are great products born of our Party's strategy for achieving prosperity. Today we are confident in saying that we, with a great pride in being a victor, are at the epochal point of opening the gates of a thriving country.

The overall appearance of the country has been transformed to be appropriate for a thriving country. True to the far-reaching plan of Kim Jong Il, building up Pyongyang into a world-class city has been undertaken full steam, and Ryongnim, Taehung, Hoeryong and many other parts have been turned into socialist fairylands. Monumental works of performing arts, like the drama "We Will Recollect Today", which represents the art and literature in the Songun era, have been created one after another, and a new golden age of the mass-based arts has been ushered in.

Last year witnessed the demonstration on an ennobling high of the traits of our people who are ready to take the road of the revolution to the end following the great Party.

The situation was tense and complicated, yet the sentiments of our people who were keeping in step with their leader in onward advance remained unstained and invariable.

The period of mourning over the death of the great Kim Jong Il proved that the ties between him and his people sealed in aspiration and emotion are eternal and unbreakable. The tears our service personnel and people shed with greatest sorrow were tears of the unity, unaffected and crystal-clear, and tears of their firm determination to follow the Party to the end of the earth. The ideological and mental virtue of our people, who are possessed of the most ennobling sense of moral obligation, makes the enemy tremble with terror and strikes the rest of the world with admiration.

As long as there are the Party, army and state, which Kim Jong Il developed to be invincible, as long as Kim Jong Un, successor to the revolutionary cause of Juche, leads us sagaciously and as long as there is an excellent people who support their leaders faithfully through generations, the cause of building a thriving country is sure to emerge victorious–-this is an iron truth inscribed in our hearts as we set out on a fresh march.

This year, Juche 101 (2012), is the year when Kim Jong Il's plan for achieving prosperity will bear a brilliant fruit, and the year of a grand march, when a new century of Kim Il Sung's Korea begins.

The march in the new century of the Juche era is the continuation of the revolutionary march that started up on Mt. Paektu. Steadfast is the will of our service personnel and people to adorn our revolution, pioneered by Kim Il Sung and whose victory after victory they won following Kim Jong Il, with eternal victory following the leadership of Kim Jong Un. The guide of hope in the march in the new century is the great revolutionary ideas of the great persons of Mt. Paektu, and the treasured swords for sure victory are the courageous mettle of the brilliant commanders of Paektu and their way of offensive. We must follow to the end the road of independence, the road of Songun and the road to socialism pioneered by Kim Il Sung, so as to ensure that the history of revolutionary activities of Kim Il Sung and the history of Songun-based revolutionary leadership of Kim Jong Il continue without interruption.

The centenary of the birth of Kim Il Sung is a major, important occasion for displaying the might of Korea, which is advancing bravely towards the world standards, and a grand revolutionary festival, which will demonstrate the steadfast continuity of the revolution in Korea, which stoutly carries forward one ideology and one bloodline. We must glorify this year as a year of grand general march for inheriting the history of great upsurge generation after generation under the leadership of the great guide, the Workers’ Party of Korea.

Today we are faced with the important task of scaling without fail the historical-stage targets of 2012 true to the lifetime instructions of General Kim Jong Il. By registering a brilliant success in this year's struggle for opening the gates of a thriving country, we must enter a new, high stage of building a thriving socialist country in an all-round way.

"Glorify this year 2012 as a year of proud victory, a year when an era of prosperity is unfolding, true to the instructions of the great General Kim Jong Il!"–-this is the militant slogan the whole Party, the entire army and all the people should uphold this year.

We must increase our political and ideological might, the might of our unity, to the maximum.

The first and foremost national power of Kim Il Sung's Korea was, is and will be the might of ideology and unity. The year 2012 is a year of single-minded unity, a year of burning loyalty, when our political and ideological might which has been consolidated generation after generation following the great leaders and the great Party, will be given full play.

Our people are all the descendants of Kim Il Sung who inherited his ideas and cause, and the soldiers and followers of Kim Jong Il. We must demonstrate to the whole world the noble outlook on morality we have cherished as we have the peerlessly great men as our eternal fathers and teachers. We should fully display our loyalty in greeting the centenary of the birth of President Kim Il Sung with high political and ideological enthusiasm and brilliant feats of labor.

The revolutionary achievements and behests of the great Kim Jong Il are the lifeline we should hold fast to forever and the eternal precious assets of the revolution. We should staunchly defend the revolutionary heritage bequeathed by Kim Jong Il, whatever the storm and stress. It is the steadfast determination of our Party that it will make no slightest vacillation and concession in implementing the instructions and policies he had laid out in his lifetime and that it will allow no change in this process. We should maintain a thoroughgoing view that the road to socialism which Kim Il Sung had pioneered and Kim Jong Il had led along is the most correct choice and the principled stand that we will defend the people-centred socialism of our own style however others may say what.

We must develop our single-minded unity without interruption into the solidest one which is carried forward generation after generation. Kim Jong Un, the supreme leader of our Party and our people, is the banner of victory and glory of Songun Korea and the eternal centre of its unity. The dear respected Kim Jong Un is precisely the great Kim Jong Il. The whole Party, the entire army and all the people should possess a firm conviction that they will become human bulwarks and human shields in defending Kim Jong Un unto death, and follow the great Party for ever. We must become true persons who keep pace with their leader and his true comrades who work untiringly to creditably realize his intentions however hard the times are.

We must vigorously launch an all-out drive to implement our Party's grand strategy for achieving prosperity.

Last year Kim Jong Il earnestly said that the whole Party, the entire nation and all the people should bring about great innovations and leap forward on all fronts of the revolution and construction following the banner of the industrial revolution in the new century and the flames of Hamnam. This instruction constitutes the most scientific and revolutionary policy he put forth on the basis of his incisive insight into the present undertaking to build a thriving nation and the inexhaustible potentials of the country. True to the pledge we took before the bier of General Kim Jong Il, we should devote all our energy, wisdom and enthusiasm to the struggle for translating into reality his plan of achieving prosperity.

The flames of Hamnam represent the banner of the general offensive for the great victory in 2012, a banner of fresh change. The flames embody the spirit of valiant offensive of accomplishing the tasks entrusted by the Party in the shortest possible period and on the highest possible level, the strong national self-respect of rising beyond the global standards by drawing on one's own strength, and the traits of a pioneer of opening before anybody else the gates of prosperity in one's own home town and at one’s own workplace.

The flames of Hamnam for great innovation should flare up more fiercely in the sectors of light industry and agriculture, the leading sectors for the building of a thriving country.

The sector of light industry should direct utmost concern to making the modern production bases, which are associated with our Party’s great care, pay off. It should produce in larger amounts quality goods which cater to people's tastes and are welcomed by them. The problem of raw and other materials necessary for this sector should be solved by relying on domestic resources, and the relentless drive be continued to develop the local industry.

At present, the food problem is a burning issue in building a thriving country. Today Party organizations' militant efficiency and officials' loyalty to the revolution will be verified in solving this problem. They should implement to the letter the Party's policy of agricultural revolution so as to radically increase the per-unit area yield of grain both in lowlands and highlands. It is important to achieve cyclic production between farming and stockbreeding, introduce the organic farming method of our style in a proactive manner and take timely measures to satisfy the demand for farming materials and machinery needed to hit the target for agricultural production. They should ensure that the modern bases for stockbreeding and poultry farming and large-size fruit and fish farms, all having an important share in the improvement of people's living standards, run at full capacity.

The vanguard sectors of the national economy, the sectors of basic industries, are charged with making breakthroughs in the grand onward march for the next 100 years following the flames of Hamnam. We should solve the problem of power shortage at all costs and on a priority basis. The sector of electric-power industry should continue to press on with the building of large-size hydropower stations and improve the operation of equipment and technical management at the existing power stations, so as to keep the generation of electricity going on a high level. The sector of coal-mining industry should direct its efforts to meeting the demands for coal from thermal-power stations and chemical and metallurgical factories, and actively develop new coal fields. The officials and working people in the sector of metallurgical industry should increase the capacity of the Juche iron production system, introduce the techniques of high-temperature air combustion which rely on domestic fuel, and accelerate the modernization of the rolled steel production lines. The sector of rail transport should give precedence to upgrading the railways of the country, increase rail transport capacity and consolidate its material and technical foundations. The sector of chemical industry should, while building up the Juche fertilizer production system, effect a radical increase in its capacity and normalize the production of vinalon and other chemical fibres and synthetic resins on a high level.

The industrial revolution in the new century, which is the grand strategic line of socialist construction advanced by our Party, is a sacred struggle for building ours into a powerful country with the knowledge-based economy of our style through the drive to break through the cutting edge.

We should raise the overall level of the technical equipment onto a new high with the pioneering spirit and creative spirit displayed by the developers at the Ryonha Machine in making a rapid progress in producing the latest CNC machine tools. All sectors and units of the national economy should drastically increase the capacity for developing new technologies and products of their own, and push forward in a far-sighted way the work of turning the national economy into a technology-intensive one.

Scientific research institutes should make greater efforts to develop the fields of core, basic technologies, including information and nano technologies and bioengineering, and promote technical engineering in major fields and produce more research findings that would beat the world. In developing science and technology, they should firmly establish the Juche-orientation, thoroughly apply collectivism, and bring science and technology close to production. Talents in the field of science and technology, precious assets of the country, should be given prominence and the conditions for their scientific research should be provided at the highest standard.

We should glorify our country as a highly civilized, socialist one.

It was a patriotic will of the great General and is a unanimous aspiration of our people to surpass the standards of the world civilization in all spheres of social life. The sector of education should ensure a high level of its contents and form, conditions and environment, as required by the era of knowledge-based economy. The sector of literature and the arts should thoroughly implement the Party's policy of conducting creation, editing and representation in our own way, and produce a larger number of masterpieces that are perfect in all respects. Activities of mass-based art lifelike, easy to understand and based on the reality of a great upsurge should be conducted briskly, and the conditions for the youth and other people to lead an affluent cultured and emotional life be better provided. The heated enthusiasm for sports should be encouraged further by enhancing social interest in physical culture and sports and making them part of people's every day life and habit.

The work of bringing into full bloom the most excellent culture and ethics of our nation and our way of life should be further intensified. We should wage an intense struggle to frustrate the manoeuvres of the imperialists' ideological and cultural infiltration and root up alien elements in the way of life, so that a revolutionary and sound atmosphere would pervade the whole society.

To improve the appearance of Pyongyang is an important project to greet in grand style the centenary of the birth of President Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il's earnest behest. We should step up the construction in the Mansudae area and other major projects under construction on the highest level and effect a radical turn in urban management and landscaping, thus ushering in a new heyday of Pyongyang in the Songun era. Every province, city and county should sustain its local peculiarities in its designing and construction, and drastically improve the appearance of its urban and rural communities.

We should consolidate the national defence capabilities in every way under the unfurled banner of Songun.

The Korean People’s Army is the pillar and main force of the Songun revolution and the vanguard in the building of a thriving nation.

This year marks the centenary of the birth of Kim Il Sung and the 80th founding anniversary of the Korean People's Army; in this meaningful year, the KPA should bring about a radical turn in all aspects of military and political work by pressing ahead with the movement for winning the title of O Jung Hup-led 7th Regiment, and thus demonstrate its heroic mettle and invincible combat efficiency as the army of the leader and the Party.

The officers and men of the KPA should cherish an unshakable faith that the great Comrade Kim Jong Il will always be with them and a noble moral obligation to him, and firmly defend his achievements for army-building and add eternal glory to them by force of arms.

The entire army should place absolute trust in and follow Kim Jong Un and become human rifles and bombs to defend him unto death, holding high the slogan “Let us defend with our very lives the Party Central Committee headed by the dear respected Comrade Kim Jong Un!"

At this juncture, when the Juche-oriented cause of army building has entered a new historic phase, the KPA should intensify the Party political work aimed at thoroughly establishing the unified command system of Kim Jong Un, Supreme Commander of our revolutionary armed forces. True to the lifetime intentions of Kim Jong Il, it should take the lead in supporting faithfully the Songun-based revolutionary leadership of Kim Jong Un, the brilliant commander born of Mt. Paektu, and establish throughout it the revolutionary climate of carrying out his orders and instructions to the letter, without reservation and even unto death.

The security of our country and people, heritage bequeathed by Kim Jong Il, and victory in the building of a thriving nation, rest on the arms of Songun. Under the slogan "Training is also a battle!" the KPA should conduct training in an atmosphere of actual battle as befits the revolutionary army of Mt. Paektu, so as to prepare all the officers and men to be a-match-for-a-hundred combatants who could implement independently and actively the operational combat tasks assigned to them, a death-defying corps for national reunification. They should be fully ready to deal prompt and merciless blows at the enemy and achieve national reunification, if they dare infringe upon our dignity and sovereignty.

By pushing ahead with the work of strengthening the command and management of units and creating military ethos, it should thoroughly establish across it steel-strong military discipline, and possess looks required of a regular army and noble moral traits. It should direct constant efforts to the strengthening of companies, thus making them all competent combat ranks and dear homes for rank-and-file soldiers.

True to the intention of our Party, which set this year for the KPA as a year for the people, it should make devoted efforts to bring their happiness into full bloom, thus implementing with credit Kim Jong Il's idea of army-people unity.

The service personnel should achieve brilliant feats of labor that would be remembered for all ages by fully demonstrating their mettle of "At a go" on major fronts of the building of a thriving nation and with the charging speed, a-match-for-a-hundred speed, of the heroic KPA, which has no word impossible in its vocabulary.

The enormous potentialities of the defence industry Kim Il Sung created and Kim Jong Il consolidated through his tireless Songun-based revolutionary leadership should be given fullest play.

To strengthen the Party and enhance its leadership role to the maximum is the decisive guarantee for unfolding a new era of prosperity true to the behests of Kim Jong Il.

At present our Party and revolution are in an important, responsible period, when the revolutionary cause of Juche is being carried forward. The present reality demands that the Paektu spirit of march, the spirit of uninterrupted revolution, to carry out the revolution firmly rallied behind Kim Jong Un run through the building and activities of the Party.

The key point in our Party work at present and in the future, too, is to thoroughly establish the monolithic leadership system of the Party. We should strengthen and develop the whole Party into an integrated whole of organizational and ideological unity, which is run through with the unanimous will to follow the leader's intentions unconditionally.

Party organizations should fully get acquainted with the public sentiments as required by the Party's mass line, and effect a fresh turn in the work with the masses. They should respect the opinions of the masses and intensify Party work accordingly, so as to make the greatness of our Party's benevolent politics, all-embracing politics, demonstrated to the full this year that marks the centenary of the birth of President Kim Il Sung.

The most powerful is a Party organization which translates into reality the lifetime wish of Kim Jong Il. Party organizations at all levels should concentrate their efforts on the struggle to make the flames of Hamnam flare up fiercely and push ahead with the industrial revolution in the new century. They should launch in a fresh and ambitious way the information and publicity work to inspire the people to live and work in the spirit and at the speed of forced march displayed by Kim Jong Il.

It is important to radically improve the way of work of officials and their leading abilities as required by the era of great upsurge.

What is important today for our officials is to actively learn from the militant temperament of the commanding officers of the KPA, who carry out the intentions of Kim Jong Un in a most swift and thoroughgoing way. Officials who buckle down audaciously and without any delay to what the Party is determined to do, who carry out any challenging task at lightning speed in a three-dimensional way and who finish any thing to be impeccable even in the distant future as a thing of lasting value–-the current age of great upsurge demand such officials.

"Let us do many more things for the benefit of the people!"–-this must be the slogan of action and conscience for our officials in supporting the intentions of the great Party. Officials should be deeply aware that they exist for the sake of the people, have the steadfast standpoint of launching all undertakings in keeping with the will and interests of the people, and acquire an open-minded attitude of verifying their loyalty to the Party in front of the people. They should thoroughly effect the intentions of our Party of considering people's conveniences to be absolute and the highest priority and making devoted services for them.

It is an important key to emerging victorious in the general offensive of this year to give fullest play to the mental strength of the masses of the people.

The mental strength of the masses decides everything. It is necessary to emulate the mental strength and executive abilities displayed by the people in South Hamgyong Province who have proudly manufactured state-of-the-art machinery by their own efforts with a firm faith that Korea does what it is determined to do. Mass movement and socialist emulation drive should be launched vigorously in all parts of the country to enlist the mental strength of the masses.

As Kim Jong Il said, when the working people's organizations are afire with enthusiasm, the whole country will be enveloped with the same atmosphere. The youth league organizations should train all their members to be genuine young vanguard of Songun that will creditably carry forward the traditions of performing miracles and innovations and the traditions of revolutionary optimism displayed in every period of the Korean revolution. Young people should perform feats of labor at all sites of the building of a thriving country, and build many more monumental structures in the Songun era to be named after youth, singing aloud "March of the Korean Youth". The women's union organizations should actively conduct various forms of do-good-thing movement, including the women’s union shock-brigade campaign, and render tangible contributions to making a revolutionary and sound way of life prevail throughout the country. All the working people's organizations should fully discharge their mission and duty as organizations for ideological education so as to encourage all their members to highly display their honor of being participants and victors in the drive to build a great, prosperous and powerful country.

We must thoroughly carry out the instructions of President Kim Il Sung, eternal sun of the nation, and the respected leader Kim Jong Il on national reunification.

The reunification of the country was the lifelong desire of the great persons of Mt. Paektu and the greatest national task assigned to our generation. General Kim Jong Il opened up a broad avenue for accomplishing Kim Il Sung's cause of national reunification by devoting his whole life. Today, the dear respected Kim Jong Un, another peerless patriot, stands in the van of the effort to carry out the cause of national reunification under the banners of the immortal three charters for national reunification and the north-south joint declarations. As solid foundations have been laid for national reunification and the whole of 70 million Korean people are burning with patriotic zeal, the long-cherished desire of the nation will be materialized without fail before long.

Last year, proceeding from a patriotic intention to open a new phase for reunification and prosperity, we proposed wide-ranging talks and negotiations to the south Korean authorities, and made consistent efforts to realize them. However, running against the trend of the times and the public sentiments, the conservative ruling forces in south Korea responded by further intensifying worship of other countries, including the United States, confrontation with the fellow countrymen in the north and war manoeuvres against the north. The acts contrary to morality and against the nation committed by the group of traitors in south Korea–neglecting the greatest national sorrow and hindering in every possible way the offering of condolence–triggered soaring indignation and denunciation on the part of all compatriots. The ruling forces have become an object of people's stern trial.

The developments of last year reaffirmed the truth of history that our nation's will for independent reunification, peace and prosperity can be broken by no force and the anti-reunification forces will surely be defeated.

This year marks the fifth anniversary of the publication of the October 4 Declaration, the action programme of the June 15 Joint Declaration.

In this meaningful year we must bring about a decisive turn in accomplishing the cause of national reunification as we hold high the slogan "Let all the compatriots open the gates of national reunification full of fresh confidence!"

The stand of national independence and putting the nation above anything else should be maintained in a thoroughgoing way.

Solving the problems of inter-Korean relations by rejecting aggressive foreign forces and pooling the efforts of our nation itself is the demand of the June 15 reunification era. All the fellow countrymen in the north, south and abroad should open a broad vista for national reunification with the conviction that our nation should be of the first and foremost consideration and that they will have nothing they cannot do if they maintain the thoroughgoing stand of national independence. Marking the fifth anniversary of the publication of the October 4 Declaration, the atmosphere of supporting the north-south declarations and the will to implement them should prevail across the whole of the national territory. The south Korean people should wage a fierce mass struggle aimed at resolutely frustrating the schemes to sell the interests of the nation in collaboration with the foreign forces.

National reconciliation and unity is the precondition and guarantee for national reunification.

The common interests of the nation should be given top priority, and everything should be subordinated to them. Confrontation between fellow countrymen that is driving the inter-Korean relations towards catastrophe should be strongly opposed and rejected. Acts against reunification, acts that disgrace the dignity of the north and foster distrust and antagonism between the north and the south, cannot be tolerated in the slightest. All the fellow countrymen should wage a nationwide struggle to frustrate the anti-reunification policy hostile to compatriots pursued by the group of traitors, hindering national reconciliation and unity and escalating confrontation.

The prevailing situation urgently demands that the war moves of the bellicose forces at home and abroad be checked and frustrated.

The entire nation, under the unfurled banner of anti-war and peace, should smash every move of reckless military provocation, arms buildup and war exercises against the north. Constant vigilance against the danger of military collaboration of the bellicose forces within the country and without should be maintained, and the US aggressor forces, the main obstacle to peace in the Korean peninsula, should be pulled out from south Korea.

Today's struggle to implement the instructions of Kim Jong Il on national reunification is a patriotic one related with the destiny of the nation in the new century of the Juche era. All the Korean people in the north, south and abroad should unite closely under the banners of the June 15 Joint Declaration and the October 4 Declaration and give further spurs to the reunification movement. By doing so, this year they should make a breakthrough for independent reunification.

The international environment was quite complicated last year, but the Korean revolution advanced invariably along the road of victory indicated by Kim Jong Il.

Kim Jong Il was a defender of justice; for long, he conducted energetic external activities under the unfurled banner of anti-imperialist independence, remarkably enhancing the position and authority of Songun Korea in the international arena and rendering immortal services to promoting the cause of independence of mankind. The historic visits he made last year to China and Russia served as important occasions for achieving peace in the world and security in Northeast Asia and developing the traditional relations of friendship. Whatever a sudden turn the international situation may take and however frantically the imperialists may behave, nothing can arrest our advance towards socialism. We will, in the future, too, hold fast to our Party’s principles of independence, friendship and peace, and strive to develop relations of friendship with countries that respect our country's sovereignty.

As they have entered the new century of the Juche era, having overcome the pain of the greatest loss, our service personnel and people are filled with a grim determination and confidence in sure victory.

Inscribed in the hearts of our service personnel and people, who have turned out in the new onward march, are lifetime appearances of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. As Kim Jong Un, a peerlessly brilliant commander, is leading our revolution in the van and the powerful revolutionary army and people united single-heartedly support faithfully their guide, the Workers' Party of Korea, the revolutionary cause of Juche is sure to emerge victorious. The advance of our revolution that started on Mt. Paektu will continue without interruption as a vigorous march towards the victorious Songun revolution, towards prosperity.

Let us all glorify the new century of Kim Il Sung's Korea as an era of prosperity and proud victory under the leadership of Kim Jong Un, the supreme leader of our Party, our state and our army.