In late September this year, the Fifth
Session of the 14th Supreme People’s Assembly of the Democratic
People’s Republic of Korea was convened in Pyongyang. In his policy speech at
the session, Kim Jong Un, President of the State Affairs, outlined and assessed
the current inter-Korean relations and the situation of the Korean peninsula,
before clarifying the policy towards the south Korea at the present stage.
First of all, he mentioned the dishonest
behaviour of the south Korean authorities.
Noting that south Korea was conspicuously
conducting various military drills and arms build-up under the pretext of
"containing" the DPRK and occasionally offending and provoking it in
words and in deeds, he scathingly criticized the south Korean authorities for
being bent on begging external support and cooperation while clamouring for
international cooperation, toeing the line of the US.
In fact, the south Korean army waged various
joint military exercises with the US troops, worsening the instability of the
situation. In August alone, "exercise of the staff for crisis
control" and a "combined command post exercise" took place from
10 to 13 and 16 to 26, respectively. Regardless of their scope and form, they
both were aggressive in nature in that they were a rehearsal and preliminary
for a nuclear war aimed at perfecting the operation plan, whose key point was a
preemptive strike against the DPRK.
Kim Jong Un clarified the DPRK’s principled
stand on south Korea’s proposal on declaring the termination of war.
He said that as long as the
factors, the sparks of distrust and confrontation between the north and the
south, remained intact, hostile acts would be continued even though the
termination of war was declared and, therefore, various unexpected clashes be repeated.
He continued: It is the invariable demand
repeatedly explained by us to ensure the respect for each other and withdraw
the partial view, unfair and double-dealing attitude and hostile viewpoint and
policies towards the other side before declaring the termination of war, and
this is an important task to be settled beforehand in order to control the
inter-Korean relations and open up a bright future.
Kim Jong Un clearly expressed the DPRK’s
attitude towards the inter-Korean relations.
He stressed: It is important for the south
Korean authorities to change its confrontational and habitual attitude towards
our Republic, keep the stand of national independence through practices, not in
words, deal with the inter-Korean relations with a view to settling the
essential issues and give weight to and sincerely implement the north-south
declarations.
Saying that he obviously reminded the south
Korean authorities once again of the fact that it depended on the attitude of
the south Korean authorities whether the inter-Korean relations would be
restored and develop onto a new stage or continue to keep the present state of
worsening, he added that the DPRK did not have any aim nor reason to provoke
south Korea nor any idea to harm it and it was necessary for south Korea to
promptly get rid of the delusion, consciousness of crisis and awareness of
getting harmed that it should deter the north’s provocation.
In his speech, he advanced magnanimous
measures for improving the north-south relations.
To look back, the south recklessly committed
a childish act of scattering leaflets to the north last year, thus triggering
strong anger of the north, with the result that the communication lines between
the two were cut off.
Thereafter, the south did not stop
scattering leaflets to the north, under the pretext of the freedom of
individuals, and its government did not take active measures to promote its
relations with the north but only clamoured about such inessential issues as
civilian-level cooperation and humanitarian aid.
This clouded the bright future of the inter-Korean
relations.
However, Kim Jong Un, as part of an effort
to realize the expectations and desire of the entire Korean nation to see the
north-south relations recover from the present deadlock as early as possible and
durable peace settle in the Korean peninsula, took the broad-minded measure of
restoring the north-south communication lines from early October.
His speech clearly explained the cause of
deadlock in the inter-Korean relations and presented a just and fair proposal
to break it. Also, it highlighted the nation-first ideal, the ideal of national
independence, that the issues between the north and south should be solved by
the Korean nation itself.
The south Korean authorities must approach
the DPRK’s just and fair proposal in good faith and respond to it with sincere
attitude.
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