Recalling that in June 2000 an inter-Korean summit was held in Pyongyang for the first time in 55 years after the division of the nation and the historic June 15 joint declaration made public, the statement described the declaration as a milestone for the unity and reunification of the Korean nation.

The reunification movement, which had made a dynamic progress along with the June 15 era of reunification, was confronted with a grave challenge in 2008 when the south Korean conservative forces came to power, it pointed out, and said:

As soon as it took office, the Lee Myung Bak group totally negated the June 15 joint declaration and the October 4 declaration and has persistently refused to implement them.

This put the inter-Korean relations, which were once favorably developing, at the crisis of total collapse and extreme confrontation.

The Lee group recently orchestrated the case of sinking of warship "Cheonan" to do harm to the DPRK and is driving the inter-Korean relations to the grave state of military confrontation.

The south Korean authorities should discontinue at once such acts of inventing clumsy conspiratorial farce as the "Cheonan" case, clearly mindful that development of the north-south relations and the national reunification can never be expected under the situation in which they are escalating the military tension while pursuing the hostile policy toward the DPRK.

The international community hopes that all the Koreans in the north and the south and overseas would promote reconciliation and cooperation and surely achieve the independent and peaceful reunification of the country under the banner of the June 15 joint declaration.