The Secretariat of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea issued information bulletin No. 945 on Friday denouncing the action.

It said:

The Press Panel of the North Side Committee for Implementing the June 15 Joint Declaration and the Press Headquarters of the South Side Committee for Implementing the June 15 Joint Declaration formally agreed to exchange each other's news items, prompted by the noble desire to promote the understanding between the north and the south and achieve as early as possible reconciliation, cooperation and reunification last year.

There is no ground whatsoever to incriminate this as it is quite natural to do so in the light of the trend of national history toward independent reunification, peace and prosperity under the banner of "By our nation itself" and the growing desire of the fellow countrymen for reunification.

This notwithstanding, the south Korean authorities took a fascist action to disallow the exchange of news items with the north under the pretext of what they called "security" and "concern." This is nothing but an anti-reunification action as it was prompted by their sinister attempt to quell the desire of the south Korean people to achieve reunification through alliance with the north, incite the hostility toward fellow countrymen and bring the inter-Korean relations to a total severance.

By "concern" the Lee Myung Bak group means that voices of the people in the north ardently desiring national reconciliation, unity and independent reunification are made known to the south Korean people and by "security" it means its intention to escalate confrontation with fellow countrymen and reinforce the legal and institutional mechanisms and the fascist ruling system to block reunification.

The Lee group would be well advised to face up to the trend of the times, stop blocking the exchange of news items between the media organizations in the north and the south and immediately drop its anti-DPRK confrontational policy.