Meanwhile, the international community is getting increasingly sympathetic with the DPRK's principled stand that it would dispatch an inspection group of its National Defence Commission.

Much upset by this development, the U.S. imperialists are running the whole gamut of tricks to hide up the truth about their anti-DPRK smear campaign.

They made much fuss conducting an "investigation" into the "case" by setting in motion even a bogus mechanism called "Armistice Commission" under the "UN Forces Command" which had already been defunct. Not content with this, they even sent to the DPRK's side a ridiculous notice proposing "general-level talks" in order to brief it on its "results."

Such behavior of the U.S. imperialists is a revelation of a sinister design to zealously instigate the Lee Myung Bak group of traitors to the confrontation and war with fellow countrymen and thus put into practice their policy of stifling the DPRK.

In this regard the head of the DPRK side to the DPRK-U.S. military general-level talks sent the following reply notice to the U.S. imperialist aggressor forces' side on Sunday:

It is preposterous that they conducted the "investigation" by using the "Military Armistice Commission" though it was beyond its mandate and it was more absurd to put the "results of investigation" on the table of the talks.

It is as clear as noon that the "results of investigation" on the part of the "MAC" touted by the U.S. forces side will only represent "the results of the joint investigation" full of fabrications and plots announced by the south Korean puppet authorities.

By origin our intention was to dispatch our inspection group to south Korea from the very day the authorities linked the case with us and then open north-south high-level military talks to discuss the results of the inspection.

We still remain unchanged in our stand to open the above-said military talks and probe the truth about the case.

If the south Korean authorities respond to our proposal, we will promptly come out for a working contact for the opening of the military talks.

The working contact will discuss the issue of sending the inspection group of our National Defence Commission to the spot of south Korea for successfully ensuring the proposed high-level military talks, the time and venue for opening the talks, the composition of delegations of both sides and other working matters.

The U.S. forces side should no longer meddle in the issue of the north-south relations under the name of "UN Forces Command."

Its continued interference in this issue would only further increase our suspicions about the U.S.

The U.S. imperialists should bear in mind that it is the most reasonable way of settling the "Cheonan" case to accept this fair and aboveboard proposal of ours.