Kim Jong Il meets chief delegate of south side
Pyongyang, September 1 (KCNA) -- General Secretary Kim Jong Il today met Minister of Unification Pak Jae Gyu, chief delegate of the delegation of the south side to the 2nd round of the north-south ministerial talks.
Secretary Kim Yong Sun of the Central Committee of the Worker's Party of Korea was on hand.
Pak Jae Gyu conveyed President Kim Dae Jung's greetings to Kim Jong Il.
Kim Jong Il expressed thanks for this and conversed with Pak Jae Gyu in a cordial atmosphere.
Kim Jong Il gave a breakfast in honor of Pak Jae Gyu and had a picture taken with him.
Gift to Kim Jong Il
Pyongyang, September 1 (KCNA) -- General Secretary Kim Jong Il received a gift from a delegation of Passason, the organ of the central committee of the Lao People's Revolutionary Party.
The gift was handed to an official concerned by its editor-in-chief Khamkay Viengsavanh on a visit to Korea.
Greetings to Vietnamese President
Pyongyang, September 1 (KCNA) -- Kim Yong Nam, President of the presidium of the DPRK Supreme People's Assembly, today sent a message of greetings to Tran Duc Luong, President of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, on the occasion of the 55th anniversary of the republic.
The message extended warm congratulations to the Vietnamese President and, through him, to all the people of Vietnam on the occasion.
Over the last 55 years the Vietnamese people have achieved great successes in the struggle to defend national independence and sovereignty and build socialism under the leadership of the communist party of Vietnam, the message noted.
Expressing the belief that the traditional friendly and cooperative relations between the two countries will continue to grow stronger and develop in the interests of socialism and the two peoples, the message wished the President success in his responsible work.
Joint communique on 2nd round of north-south ministerial talks
Pyongyang, September 1 (KCNA) -- The second round of the north-south ministerial talks which opened here amid the expectation and concern of people at home and abroad came to an end today.
At the talks, progressive measures were raised to implement the agreed points of the historic north-south joint declaration. Both sides agreed on presented proposals in view of reconciliation and cooperation, unity and reunification.
The head of the north side's delegation and the chief delegate of the south side released a joint communique on the second round of the inter-Korean talks.
It reads:
The second round of the north-south ministerial talks was held in Pyongyang from August 29 to September 1, Juche 89 (2000).
At the talks, both sides underlined again the weighty significance of the June 15 north-south joint declaration and estimated it for producing good results.
They reaffirmed their willingness to strive together to sincerely implement the north-south joint declaration and agreed on the following practical items.
1. The north and the south will exchange two more visiting groups of separated families and relatives within this year.
Working matters related to this will be soon discussed by the Red Cross organisations of the north and the south. In addition, they will discuss matters arising in promoting correspondence between separated families and relatives and others.
2. The north and the south will strive to defuse the tensions and ensure peace.
In this connection the talks recommend the relevant fields to have talks between the military authorities of the two sides at an early date.
3. The north and the south will secure an institutional guarantee including the ensuring of investment and the prevention of double taxation in order to expand and develop economic cooperation.
A working-level contact of experts of both sides will be held within September in this connection.
And the south side will examine the issue of providing on a credit food to the north side on the principle of mutual help, given the fact that it is suffering from repeated natural calamities, and push ahead with its implementation.
4. The north and the south will have a working-level contact for relinking the railways between Sinuiju and Seoul and opening the road between Kaesong and Munsan within September to discuss the matter of ground-breaking ceremonies, etc.
5. The north and the south will jointly push forward the work to prevent the flood damage in areas along River Rimjin at an early date.
6. The north and the south will send tourist groups, each having about a hundred persons, to the area of each side from mid-September to early October to enable them to tour Mt. Paektu and Mt. Hanna.
7. The north and the south will have the third round of the north-south ministerial talks on Mt. Hanna from September 27 to 30, Juche 89 (2000).
The size of the delegation of each side to the talks will be determined according to its convenience.
Solidarity with Korean people expressed in Portugal
Pyongyang, September 1 (KCNA) -- A meeting for friendship and solidarity with the Korean people was held at the 37th Historil international handicrafts exhibition in Portugal on August 21.
Invited to the meeting were delegates of 20 odd countries to the exhibition, including the DPRK delegation of the general exhibition bureau.
Addressing the meeting, Acasio Libeiro, coordinator of the exhibition organizing committee, said that the Korean people are now working hard to build the best socialist country in the world under the wise guidance of the great Kim Jong Il despite difficulties.
We hope that they will reunify the country at an early date in accordance with the proposal of founding the Democratic Federal Republic of Koryo advanced by the President Kim Il Sung and lead a happy life, he said.
U.S. commit air espionage on DPRK
Pyongyang, September 1 (KCNA) -- The U.S. committed at least 170 cases of aerial espionage on the DPRK in August with strategic and tactical reconnaissance planes involved on different missions, military sources said.
On August 28 an overseas-based P-3 patrol plane made flights in the skies above the east and west seas of Korea to spy on our coast and seabed.
On August 30, U-2 made flights in the skies above Tojok Islet, Phochon and Sokcho areas of South Korea on an espionage mission against the DPRK. The number of round-the-clock espionage flights by this high-altitude strategic reconnaissance plane totaled more than 40.
Vietnamese National Day observed
Pyongyang, September 1 (KCNA) -- A photo exhibition and a film show were held at the Korean Committee for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries on Thursday to mark the 55th anniversary of the National Day of Vietnam.
Invited to them were ambassador Do Thi Hoa and staff members of the Vietnamese embassy here.
Vice-Minister of Education Jon Kuk Man, who is chairman of the Korea-Vietnam Friendship Association, and officials concerned were present together with citizens.
The participants looked round photos introducing Vietnam and saw a Vietnamese documentary film on its development.
Meeting for Japan-DPRK friendship held in Japan
Pyongyang, September 1 (KCNA) -- The national exchange meeting for the development of Japan-DPRK friendship--the 24th national meeting of Japanese teachers for the study of the Juche idea was held in Japan on Aug. 26 and 27.
Tadao Oishi, secretary general of the Liaison Council of the Society of Japanese Teachers for the Study of the Juche Idea, in his report said the publication of the June 15 north-south joint declaration is a world historic event which put an end to the more than half a century long east-west Cold War. As the implementation of the declaration leads to peace not only on the Korean peninsula but in northeast Asia, the Japanese people should conduct widespread activities to support it, he said.
Referring to the talks for the establishment of Japan-DPRK diplomatic relations, he urged Japan not to raise such unreasonable preconditions as "suspected kidnapping" and "suspicion of missile" but discuss the issue of redressing its past with sincerity, to begin with.
He stressed the need to more widely conduct activities for the study and dissemination of the Juche idea, set right the wrong understanding of the Japanese history, improve the education in history and rectify the policy of discrimination against the national education at the Korean schools and called for making efforts to greet the 21st century as a century of Japan-DPRK friendship.
His report was followed by speeches.
The meeting heard a lecture "situation around the Korean peninsula and our task." reports and speeches were made at panel discussions on theories, education and practice and activities for Japan-DPRK friendship.
A letter to General Secretary Kim Jong Il was adopted there.
Glorifying Korea of Juche under great party's leadership
Pyongyang, September 1 (KCNA) -- Papers here today dedicate editorials to the 40th anniversary of General Secretary Kim Jong Il's start of revolutionary activities at Kim Il Sung University.
An editorial of Rodong Sinmun says that the course of Kim Jong Il's glorious revolutionary activities is a brilliant history of an outstanding thinker and theoretician, a master of extraordinary leadership art and invincible and iron-willed commander, who has performed immortal exploits to shine in the century by devoting himself to the motherland and people and to the successful progress of the socialist cause true to the intention of the President Kim Il Sung.
It was his immortal exploits made in glorifying Korea that he has firmly defended and comprehensively developed and enriched the President's revolutionary idea.
It was thanks to Kim Jong Il that the revolutionary idea of Kim Il Sung was formulated as an integral system of idea, theory and method of Juche and it came to shed its rays as an eternal guiding idea in the era of independence and the DPRK came to fully demonstrate its might as an ideologically powerful country.
He created the history of a peerless patriot and great genius of creation and construction by radically changing the appearance of the country with his indefatigable energetic leadership.
The course of his activities is a glorious one in which he brought about a new turn in the country with his noble patriotic spirit. Radical changes have thus taken place in the political, economic, cultural, military and all other fields of the revolution and construction.
The revolutionary spirit of soldiers and the spirit of Kanggye were highly displayed and a solid springboard was laid to build a powerful state in such difficult periods as the "arduous march" and forced march.
All this would have been unthinkable without his leadership.
The sovereignty of our nation will remain inviolable and our country will always stand as an impregnable fortress as long as he leads the Korean people.
An editorial of Minju Joson says that his cause is the greatest, the noblest and invincible, calling for bringing the revolutionary cause of Juche to shining completion under his clear-sighted army-first leadership.
Stronger Non-Aligned Movement called for
Pyongyang, September 1 (KCNA) -- Papers here today dedicate articles to the day of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM).
Rodong Sinmun in a signed article says that the NAM has grown into a strong anti-imperialist revolutionary force to reckon with in our times and a driving force in building an independent new world.
The Cold War came to an end but the imperialists remain unchanged in their offensives against the progressive countries under the signboards of "peace," "democracy" and "human rights" and have grown more ferocious in them, the article notes, adding this calls for strengthening and developing the NAM.
Saying that the issue of paramount importance is to firmly and invariably adhere to the fundamental idea and the principle governing the activities of the movement, the article observes: If the movement changes its idea and action program, its inherent nature will change and it will be impossible to keep it alive, either.
It is the only way for the nam to fulfil its mission and role as a great political force in the next century, too, to strengthen the unity and solidarity of the movement.
It calls for preserving the purity of the movement, defending world peace and security from the imperialists' arbitrary and high-handed practices and establishing a new international order.
Minju Joson underscores the need for the member countries of the NAM to counter the imperialists' moves for split and alienation with a strategy of solidarity under the uplifted banner of independence against imperialism. The DPRK will as always make positive efforts to strengthen and develop this movement, it says.
Kim Il Sung's noble comradeship
Pyongyang, September 1 (KCNA) -- From old times, a safe is known to keep such things as money, important documents and other valuables.
But, the safe used by the President Kim Il Sung was something for the purpose quite different from others'.
One day in Juche 83 (1994) when the Korean people were in profound grief over the unexpected demise of the President, officials concerned unlocked the safe he had used for a long time in his office.
It contained nothing but two envelopes of letters he received from revolutionary comrades-in-arms and a picture he had taken with Kim Chaek.
Kim Chaek was one of his revolutionary comrades-in-arms, who assisted the President in the revolutionary work, holding such important posts as vice-chairman of the People's Committee of North Korea and vice-premier of the DPRK cabinet after the liberation of the country in Juche 34(1945) and commander of the front during the Fatherland Liberation War. He passed away in January 1951.
The officials were deeply touched by the noble comradeship of the President who had long kept with good care the picture and letters, unable to forget even in dreams the revolutionary comrades with whom he shared the idea and purpose.
Here is another story telling about his warm love for revolutionary comrades-in-arms.
It happened when the President came back to his native home after the liberation of the country, that was 20 years after he left there. His grandparents asked him to shift the graves of his parents to the homeland from the alien land where they died while struggling for the liberation of the country.
On hearing this, he told them his intention to find out before anyone else the bereaved children of those comrades who fell in the anti-Japanese revolutionary struggle. Later he found all of them in different areas and built a revolutionary school for them.
He also saw to it that the revolutionary martyrs' cemetery and the patriotic martyrs' cemetery were built to hand the revolutionary comrades' spirit and exploits performed in the struggle down to posterity and he found out all those at home and abroad related to his revolutionary activities and met them in his lifetime. These facts show the unbounded comradeship of the President who valued his comrades more than a thousand pieces of gold.
Papers observe Libyan Arab people's day of revolution
Pyongyang, September 1 (KCNA) -- Papers today observe the 31st anniversary of the Libyan Arab people's victory of the great September 1st Revolution.
Rodong Sinmun in a signed article says that patriotic soldiers and people of Libya achieved the victory of the revolution on September 1, 1969 by overthrowing the feudal dynasty under the leadership of Colonel Moammer El Gaddafi.
It goes on:
The Libyan Arab people have strong anti-imperialist spirit and desire for independence.
The imperialists have incessantly conducted vicious anti-Libya campaigns, regarding independent Libya as a thorn in their flesh.
The Libyan Arab people are pushing ahead with the building of a new life, while consolidating the victory of the revolution despite the imperialists' political and military pressure and economic blockade.
Pursuing an anti-imperialist independent, non-aligned foreign policy, Libya has developed friendly and cooperative relations with Arab and various other countries of the world.
The Korean people extend full support and firm solidarity to the Libyan Arab people in their just struggle to defend the country's sovereignty and the nation's dignity and build a new life.
The Korean people will as ever make sustained efforts to strengthen Korea-Libya friendship.
Minju Joson in a signed article says that the friendship between the two peoples of the DPRK and Libya is growing stronger and developing day by day as it was forged through the common struggle for independence and peace against imperialism.