Rodong Sinmun Sunday carries a signed article blasting this unchanged intention to escalate the confrontation with the north.

It says:

A scrutiny into the policy for this year shaped by the south Korean Minister of Unification on the occasion of the New Year shows that it does not clarify the stand and will to respect and implement the June 15 joint declaration and the October 4 declaration, the foundation and lifeline for improving the inter-Korean relations. This indicates that they often talk about what they call "dialogue" and "cooperation" but, in fact, they have no intention to implement them in the new year, too.

This is more clearly evidenced by the "four important tasks" proposed by the ministry.

The above-said tasks consider as their keynote the "policy of co-existence and co-prosperity" which is unanimously censured and condemned by all the fellow countrymen for being a treacherous theory of confrontation and they are aimed at persistently pursuing the policy of confrontation with the north under the signboard of it.

The above-said four tasks proposed by the ministry the keynote of which are "dialogue and cooperation" and "co-existence and co-prosperity" glaringly reveal the sinister intention to evade the criminal responsibility for having driven the inter-Korean relations to catastrophe last year at any cost, mislead public opinion at home and abroad and escalate the confrontation with the north in a more cunning and vicious manner.

What merits a more serious attention is that Lee Myung Bak more openly betrayed his confrontation hysteria than ever before when receiving a report on the work of the ministry. This was an open agitation that it is necessary to give up inter-Korean dialogue and economic cooperation with the north, claiming that there is no need to pursue them, and head for confrontation and war.

If the group persistently pursues the moves for confrontation with the north while denying the historic inter-Korean joint declarations this year, too, the Korean nation will never pardon the group of traitors.

The south Korean authorities would be well advised to properly understand the strong desire and will of the whole nation and roll back at once the traitorous policy of confrontation, urges the article.