The leading newspapers of the party, army and youth league in the joint New Year editorial called for carrying out the instructions of President Kim Il Sung and leader Kim Jong Il for national reunification.

It was a lifelong wish of the great persons of Mt. Paektu to build a rich and prosperous reunified country on this land.

Kim Jong Il devoted his whole life to accomplishing the President's cause of national reunification.

He used to say how good it would be if the country is reunified so that northerners can tour Pond Paeknok on Mt. Halla and southerners tour Lake Chon on Mt. Paektu.

He always thought his nation and his fellow countrymen before anything else.

He provided the historic north-south joint declaration with national independence as its core and brought about a stirring event in which the severed blood vessels and territory of the nation have been relinked for the first time since the division of the nation. He ushered in the June 15 era of reunification in which the nation brings about independent reunification, peace and prosperity by its concerted efforts.

It was the biggest loss to the nation that it lost Kim Jong Il, lodestar of national reunification who led the fellow countrymen to the path of independence and the great national unity.

National reunification is the biggest task he left to our generation.

The on-going drive for implementing his instructions for national reunification is a patriotic one related to the nation's destiny in the new century of Juche era.

Nothing is more vital than national reunification for the Korean nation at present.

The Korean nation that had lived as a homogenous nation with one and the same blood vessel for thousands of years has suffered from misfortune, pain and shame of division even though decades have passed since the end of the Cold War.

Distrust between the fellow countrymen increasingly deepened. This tragedy of the nation adversely affects peace and stability of Northeast Asia.

National reconciliation and unity are preconditions and guarantee for national reunification.

The interests common to the nation should be placed above all and everything be subordinated to them.

The nation should uphold slogan "Let all the compatriots open the gates of national reunification full of fresh confidence!" this significant year marking the fifth anniversary of the October 4 declaration.

All the Koreans in the north and the south and abroad should step up the nationwide general march for reunification with the stand of independence, peace and the great national unity and achieve the cause of national reunification without fail.