KIM JONG UN VISITS KUMSUSAN PALACE OF SUN

Pyongyang, July 8 (KCNA) -- Kim Jong Un, first secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea, first chairman of the National Defence Commission of the DPRK and supreme commander of the Korean People's Army, visited the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun to pay tribute to Generalissimos Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il at 00:00 on Monday, the greatest memorial day of the nation.
    He entered the hall where the statues of the Generalissimos are standing.
    Laid before the statues were a floral basket in the name of Marshal Kim Jong Un.
    Also placed before the statues was a floral basket in the name of the Central Military Commission of the WPK and the National Defence Commission of the DPRK.
    Kim Jong Un, together with his companions, paid high tribute to the Generalissimos before the statues.
    Then he entered the hall where Kim Il Sung lies in state with the companions to make a bow to him in humblest reverence.
    He went round the room preserving the orders Kim Il Sung received, the mourning hall and halls that house a train and a car he used in his lifetime.
    He then entered the hall where Kim Jong Il lies in state to make a bow to him in humblest reverence together with the companions.
    He went round the room preserving the orders Kim Jong Il received and halls that house a car, electric car, boat and train he used in his lifetime.
    He was accompanied by senior officials of the Central Military Commission of the WPK, the National Defence Commission of the DPRK and the Korean People's Army including Pak Pong Ju, Choe Ryong Hae, Jang Song Thaek, Kim Kyok Sik, Jang Jong Nam, Kim Won Hong, Hyon Chol Hae, Choe Pu Il, Ju Kyu Chang and Kim Kyong Ok. -0-

Cultural Asset Retrieved during Korean War

    Pyongyang, July 4 (KCNA) -- Rijo Silok (Chronicles of Feudal Joson Dynasty) is one of Korea's national treasures as it deals with the 500-year-long history of the dynasty.
    Preserved in Seoul City, the books would have been damaged in the turbulence of the Korean War (June 25, 1950-July 27, 1953), but for a special measure taken by President Kim Il Sung for the protection of the national treasure.
    In early July Juche 39 (1950), some days after Seoul was liberated by the Korean People's Army, Kim Il Sung called educational officials to the Supreme Command to give them a special task to go to Seoul and take the chronicles to Pyongyang.
    The Supreme Command drew up a route for trucking them to Pyongyang and issued an order to military units to assist the educational officials in the retrieval.
    Very pleased to hear a report on their arrival, he took a measure to preserve them in safety. -0-

Armistice Voided: Either War or Peace

The United States and its following forces passed over the “red line” in their attempt to stifle the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Consequently the latter took a resolute measure of nullifying the Korean Armistice Agreement.

The situation on the Korean peninsula, which had been precarious in the state of armistice, has entered a critical point of deciding on either war or peace.

Armistice Is Not Peace

The Korean war (1950-1953) ended in an armistice, but peace was not settled on the Korean peninsula.

Armistice itself means a temporary cessation of hostilities, not a de facto termination of war. It is, therefore, not fortuitous to say that the DPRK and the US still remain technically at war ever since their signing of the Korean Armistice Agreement.

The settlement of peace is possible when an armistice agreement is replaced by a peace treaty.

In the world history of war armistice agreements were replaced by peace treaties after certain transitional periods. Such agreements were converted to peace treaties between six months and two years after the First World War, and within several years, ten years at longest, after the Second World War.

However, the Korean Armistice Agreement has existed for sixty years.

It was not intended from the outset that the Korean Armistice Agreement would last this long. It was a transitional and temporary measure taken for the cessation of active hostilities and armed conflicts between belligerents until the Korean issue was settled in a peaceful way.

The DPRK made consistent efforts to replace the Korean Armistice Agreement with a peace treaty since long ago.

In the 1970s it advanced a proposal of concluding a peace treaty with the US, and in the 1980s suggested a tripartite talks involving south Korea in the DPRK-US talks. Entering the 1990s it proposed to establish a new peace-keeping mechanism, which was followed by a proposal of declaring an end of war in the meeting of the countries concerned with the Korean Armistice Agreement in 2007. In 2010 it put forth another proposal of starting as soon as possible the talks to replace the Korean Armistice Agreement with a peace treaty within the year to mark the 60^th year of the outbreak of the Korean war. It made painstaking efforts to realize those proposals.

All these either were given cold shoulder or rejected by the US.

The US had no wish for any change in status quo, but for a chance of igniting war and occupying the whole of Korea.

To get that chance it persistently committed acts of military provocation during the past sixty years. Typical examples are the Pueblo and EC-121 incidents in the 1960s, and the Panmunjom incident in the 1970s. Every time it was the US that triggered off the incident, shifted the blame on the DPRK side and attempted to start a war by mobilizing a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and huge armed forces.

The US has already completed its operational plans in various types for conducting a Korean war, such as operations plans codenamed 5029, 5030 and 5012. According to those plans it has annually conducted joint war rehearsals for scores of years, changing the codenames into Focus Retina, Freedom Bolt, Team Spirit, Key Resolve, Ulji Freedom Guardian and so on.

Past sixty years, when the Korean peninsula was constantly faced with the danger of war, and the prevailing situation in the region eloquently prove that the armistice does not mean peace.

Armistice Is Cancelled

Though the Korean Armistice Agreement was officially cancelled with the DPRK’s declaration of its nullification this time, its provisions had previously been violated wantonly by the US.

No sooner had the US signed the Korean Armistice Agreement 60 years ago than it concluded the ROK-US Mutual Defence Pact in an attempt to perpetuate its occupation of south Korea. It was a blatant violation of the provision of the armistice agreement that stipulated the withdrawal of all the foreign troops from the Korean peninsula.

In 1956 it suspended the functioning of the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission and the Neutral Nations Inspection Teams in the area under its control, and the following year officially stated that it cancelled the provision reading, “Cease the introduction into Korea of reinforcing combat aircraft, armoured vehicles, weapons, and ammunition.”

In this way the US ruthlessly reduced the Korean Armistice Agreement into a mere name from the beginning, and constantly waged war games and committed acts of military provocation. It can be interpreted as a kind of war in flat denial of the armistice.

The US, in collaboration with south Korea, flagrantly violated the Korean Armistice Agreement in the minutest detail. It replaced its senior member of the Military Armistice Commission with a general of the south Korean army that is not a signatory to the agreement, and turned over to the south Korean army the guard duty of the joint security area in Panmunjom. By so doing, it made all the provisions on the Military Armistice Commission a mere scrap of paper. Worse still, it arbitrarily established the Northern Limit Line contrary to the agreement, instigating the south Korean frequent armed conflicts against the north on its West Sea. Typical was the shelling incident on Yonphyong Island.

While reducing the Korean Armistice Agreement to a mere paper, the US abused it as a lever of its intensified moves of aggression.

In recent years it mobilized in military exercises, which had been jointly conducted with the south Korean army, even the troops of some countries which had participated in the Korean war on its side. This year, too, it involved in the joint military exercise Key Resolve the troops of Britain, Australia and three other countries. Former commander of the US troops stationed in south Korea stated that if the Korean Armistice Agreement were cancelled and the acts of hostilities resumed, 16 member nations would be reorganized for alliance and continue to perform as the United Nations Forces until the UN Security Council declared the termination of the mission. It revealed the ulterior scheme of the US to automatically involve them in case of a war on the Korean peninsula as belligerents on its side.

The prevailing situation compelled the DPRK not to sit idle, only looking at the gathering clouds of war, bound by the Korean Armistice Agreement.

Accordingly the Supreme Command of the Korean People’s Army declared invalid the Korean Armistice Agreement in the same instance when the war manoeuvres of the US and its vassal forces entered into a full-scale stage.

War or Peace?

The annulment of the Korean Armistice Agreement set loose the brake on the situation in the Korean peninsula, pushing it toward the brink of war beyond control.

This grave situation clearly proves that the US and its vassal forces doggedly found fault with the peaceful and legitimate satellite launch of the DPRK and gradually aggravated the situation, in pursuit of a cause to start a war.

The DPRK’s response to the US attempt to provoke a war was that it would counter the latter’s war of aggression with the war of justice. In other words, it would deal an immediate, annihilating counterblow, should even one spark be thrown on its territorial land, sky and water, and further achieve the great cause of national reunification without missing the opportunity.

It is an unshakeable stand and thoroughgoing countermeasure of the Korean army and people to hold out a sword against a dagger and a gun against a rifle.

The DPRK is neither the Balkans nor Iraq and Libya. Its army and people never tolerate their national sovereignty being infringed upon.

They are the very one that inflicted in the Korean war of the 1950s an ignominious defeat on the US, having boasted of its “strongest” in the world, for the first time in its history. They also emerged victorious in fierce confrontations with it, including the Pueblo and EC-121 incidents in the 1960s, and the Panmunjom incident in the 1970s. They were the victors in the two rounds of nuclear showdowns against the US, in the 1990s and the early 2000s respectively, thus bringing the world’s nuclear superpower to its knees and defending sovereignty of their country.

The Korean army and people have countered the hard stance of the US with harder stance, and today they have declared that they would counter the nuclear blackmails of the US with more powerful means of precision nuclear strike of the Korean style. It should be given due attention. It is recognized worldwide that the DPRK will do what it is determined to do.

However, this country should not be regarded as a bellicose state, though it responds to the US hard line with harder line.

It is both in name and reality a peace-loving country. At present, peace is valuable for it, as it is channelling utmost efforts into attaining the gigantic goal of building an economic giant and improving its people’s standard of living.

Though, its army and people want genuine peace, the just one that they can enjoy without their sovereignty and dignity being violated. They do not want to barter their peace for the submission to the imperialists and dominationists, their national sovereignty and dignity.

It is realistic and wise for them to state that “peace lies on our arms” in their confrontation against military threats and attempts of aggression made by the US.

The DPRK declared that if the US ignites the fuse of a war against it, it will take the opportunity to root up the sources of aggression and war from the Korean peninsula and the rest of the world.

The ball is in the court of the US.

It should choose between war and peace: either it would ignite a nuclear war against the DPRK, a possessor of powerful strategic missiles and nukes, or it would co-exist peacefully with it.

The US politicians are at the crossroads of history. Until now, they are accustomed to determining the lot of other countries, and they must decide their own destiny.