Rodong Sinmun on army-based policy
Pyongyang, November 3 (KCNA) -- The army-based policy of the DPRK is an independent and patriotic policy that protects the dignity, security and interests of the nation from imperialist aggression, says Rodong Sinmun today in a signed article.
The army-centered policy is the wisest policy adopted in view of the history of national sufferings in which its sovereignty was wantonly violated by foreign forces, the article says, and goes on:
The policy serves as a treasured sword of justice to bring down a sledge hammer upon the heads of the imperialists who encroach upon the sovereignty and the vital rights of the Korean nation, and a powerful driving force pushing forward the movement for independent national reunification.
The north and the south of Korea are exposed to grave encroachment and threats by the U.S. imperialists. The U.S. is posing a nuclear threat to the Korean Peninsula, while trying to mislead the public opinion with much ado about "nuclear weapons program" of the DPRK.
Lurking behind their moves is a sinister intention to disarm the DPRK and deprive it of its vital rights so as to enslave all the Koreans. Once they trigger a war against the DPRK, South Korea will not go safe. If a nuclear war breaks out in the small Korean Peninsula, all the Koreans in the north and south will suffer from it.
From a logical viewpoint, the DPRK's army-based policy is the most independent and just patriotic policy to foil the U.S. imperialists' moves for aggression and protect the dignity and interests of the whole nation including South Koreans.
U.S. government urged to respond to DPRK proposal for negotiations
Pyongyang, November 3 (KCNA) -- The Bush administration should not reduce the 1994 DPRK-U.S. Agreed Framework to a dead document but positively respond to the proposal of North Korea for negotiations, said Selig S. Harrison, senior scholar and director of the Asia Program Centre for International Policy in the U.S., in an article carried in the October 22 issue of the U.S. newspaper USA Today.
The Bush administration refused to accept the proposal on the grounds that the "nuclear program of North Korea" is in violation of the 1994 nuclear agreement, he noted. The agreement is related only to the plutonium related facilities that existed in those days.
The U.S. violated the process of the normalization of relations, the key point of the nuclear agreement, and the agreement on giving formal assurances to North Korea against the threat or use of nuclear weapons by the U.S., he said.
It recalled that the new security strategy of the bush administration violated the major points of the nuclear agreement with North Korea by claiming that it is entitled to make a preemptive strike including the use of nuclear weapons, if necessary, against those countries that are regarded as threats to "peace."
He stressed that the U.S. is urgently required to have negotiations with Pyongyang to keep the 1994 nuclear agreement alive and finally settle the "nuclear issue" of North Korea.
Withdrawal of U.S. troops from South Korea called for
Pyongyang, November 3 (KCNA) -- The New Communist Party of Great Britain and the organization of solidarity of the peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America issued statements on October 14 and 23, supporting the independent and peaceful reunification of Korea and demanding the withdrawal of the U.S. troops from South Korea.
The statements said that the Bush administration, preoccupied with the zeal for hegemony and war, is persistently pursuing its anachronistic hostile policy toward the DPRK despite the situation on the Korean Peninsula developing in favour of reconciliation, unity, peace and stability.
They urged the U.S. to drop at once its anachronistic hostile policy toward the DPRK, stop hamstringing the process of independent reunification of the Korean nation for implementation of the June 15 North-South Joint Declaration and withdraw its troops and war equipment from South Korea without delay.
They expressed the expectation and conviction that the progressive political parties and organizations of the world would more actively conduct international campaigns to support and encourage the grand march of the Korean nation for independent reunification and the struggle of the South Korean people for independence against the U.S. and thus positively contribute to realizing the common cause of humankind to build a free and peaceful new world.
Japanese-Korean meeting held in Japan
Pyongyang, November 3 (KCNA) -- A Japanese-Korean meeting of the fact-finding group of Korean draftees took place in Tokyo on October 28, according to a KNS report.
The list of more than 230,000 Korean draftees that the group obtained through its surveys in the DPRK, Japan, the United States and other areas was opened to the public at the meeting.
Hong Sang Jin, secretary general of the Koreans' side to the group, in a report said that the Japanese law provides for compensation to the former Korean soldiers and workers in army units and their bereaved families but the Koreans are excluded from it for the mere reason that they do not have the Japanese nationality. He expressed the hope that the issue of Japan's liquidation of its past would be properly settled at the talks for the normalization of DPRK-Japan relations.
Masayuki Tskahara, secretary general of the Japanese side to the Osaka prefectural fact-finding group, in a report demanded the Japanese authorities conduct a responsible investigation into the draftees and open its results to the public.
The meeting heard reports from representatives of the Kanagawa, Chiba, Saitama and other regional fact-finding groups which were followed by a lecture titled "significance of the DPRK-Japan Pyongyang declaration and tasks to implement it."
Messages sent by the DPRK measure committee for demanding compensation to comfort women for the Japanese army and the victims of forcible drafting and the South Korean Council for Measures of Volunteers' Corps Issue were introduced at the meeting.
Testimonies of draftees and photographs of "brothels" obtained by Japanese cameraman Takashi Ito during his visit to the DPRK were opened to the public at the meeting.
U.S. demand for DPRK's scrapping of its nuclear weapons program under fire
Beijing, November 1 (KCNA) -- If the United States persistently poses a nuclear threat to the DPRK, sidestepping its proposal for concluding a non-aggression treaty between the DPRK and the U.S., Pyongyang is left with no option but to take a corresponding step.
Choe Jin Su, DPRK Ambassador to China, said this at a press conference in Beijing on November. 1, exposing the U.S. unreasonable demand for the DPRK's scrapping of its nuclear weapons program.
He said: The U.S. refusal to accept the DPRK proposal means that the U.S. has an intention to invade the DPRK. after all, it goes to prove that Bush's remark that the U.S. has no intention to invade the DPRK is sheer hypocrisy.
The DPRK-U.S. Agreed Framework calls for simultaneous actions in view of the hostile relations between the DPRK and the U.S. and the nuclear issue should be addressed from such viewpoint.
The U.S. assertion that Pyongyang should scrap its nuclear weapons program means the DPRK's surrender and as it means death, it will spark only a clash.
The DPRK is ready to clear the U.S. of its security worries if the U.S. legally assures the DPRK of its non-aggression on the DPRK including nonuse of nuclear weapons through a non-aggression treaty.
Origin of nuclear issue on Korean Peninsula clarified
Moscow, November 1 (KCNA) -- If the United States sidesteps the DPRK's proposal for concluding a non-aggression treaty between the DPRK and the U.S., it means that the U.S. openly reveals its will to invade the DPRK.
Pak Ui Chun, DPRK Ambassador to Russia, said this at a press conference in Moscow on Oct. 31.
Exposing the aggressive aim the U.S. sought in raising the "nuclear suspicion" in the DPRK, he referred to the faith and will of the Korean army and people to remain true to the army-based policy of Kim Jong Il to the last.
He said that whether the DPRK has nuclear weapons or not will be clear when one properly understands the origin of the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula.
As far as the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula is concerned it cropped up as the U.S. has threatened the DPRK with nuclear weapons in order to realize its strategy for world supremacy, he noted, and went on:
The Bush administration adopted a nuclear preemptive attack on the DPRK as its policy and thus totally breached the basic spirit of the NPT and reduced the north-south joint declaration on denuclearization to a dead document.
It is well known to the world that more than 1,000 nuclear weapons have been deployed in South Korea and the U.S. troops present in South Korea are armed with backpack nukes. This is not worth serious discussion.
Carrying forward revolutionary traditions of Mt. Paektu called for
Pyongyang, November 3 (KCNA) -- Kim Jong Il, the great leader and a son born of Mt. Paektu, is successfully carrying forward the revolutionary traditions of Mt. Paektu, says Rodong Sinmun Sunday in a signed article.
It goes on:
His unshakable will to carry forward the traditions found its clear manifestation in the fact that he energetically led the work to spruce up the revolutionary battle sites in the area of Mt. Paektu after unrolling a gigantic plan for it. His will is also clearly manifested in the efforts he exerted to lead the army and the people to dynamically step up the building of a powerful nation in the spirit of the red flag of Mt. Paektu and value and project the revolutionary forerunners.
The DPRK has long made great efforts to build the revolutionary battle sites in the area of Mt. Paektu to be handed down to posterity. As a result, the area turned into an eternal fountainhead of the Korean revolution and a centre for education in the revolutionary traditions.
It was in the revolutionary spirit of Mt. Paektu that the people in Jagang Province displayed the Kanggye Spirit in the period of the "arduous march" and the workers in Ranam kindled a torch to make a revolutionary advance in the new century, learning from the indefatigable fighting spirit displayed during the anti-Japanese struggle.
The noble trait of respecting the revolutionary forerunners is prevailing in the DPRK which is a manifestation of the noble desire of its army and people to successfully carry forward the revolutionary traditions of Mt. Paektu and accomplish the cause of Juche.
Thanks to the Mt. Paektu traditions and the spirit of the red flag the cause of building a powerful nation will make more dynamic progress and the desire of the revolutionary forerunners is sure to come true on this land.
S. Korean side to blame for abortive contact
Pyongyang, November 3 (KCNA) -- As already reported, an inter-Korean Red Cross working-level contact was made at the Mt. Kumgang resort from Oct. 31 to Nov. 2.
At the contact the north side advanced reasonable technical proposals related to providing conditions for the building of the meeting house at Mt. Kumgang resort such as its site and size, the provision of labor force, design and date for a ground-breaking ceremony, etc. and approached outstanding humanitarian issues from a magnanimous stand, prompted by the noble desire to alleviate the sufferings of the separated families and relatives as early as possible.
So, if a simple work of wording had been done by both sides, it would have been quite possible for the north and south sides to adopt an agreement and bring joy to the fellow countrymen.
But at the last moment of the contact the members of the south side's delegation all of a sudden refused to adopt the agreement and were so insincere as to unilaterally leave the meeting place and go back, saying that it was the time for the ship to leave the port, it was difficult to agree on the document due to its failure to contact Seoul and there was an instruction from there to return without adopting any agreement.
The contact thus ended up without any agreement.
However, the south side is busy spreading the rumor that the working contact proved abortive owing to the north side's lack of positive and sincere efforts.
For the sake of the future, the south side should know it is useless for it to say something quite different from truth.