The joint New Year editorial says that all the Korean people in the north, south and abroad should unite closely under the banners of the June 15 Joint Declaration and October 4 Declaration and give further spurs to the reunification movement. The joint editorial also says that by doing so, this year they should make a breakthrough for independent reunification.

Leader Kim Jong Il, together with south Korean President Roh Moo Hyun, signed the "Declaration for Development of North-South Relations and Peace and Prosperity" on October 4, Juche 96 (2007).

The Oct. 4 declaration provided by his patriotic will and resolution indicates ways of developing north-south relations, achieving peace on the Korean Peninsula, national co-prosperity and reunification, based on the idea of "By our nation itself", the main spirit of the June 15 joint declaration.

The declaration has won full support from people at home and abroad. Since it was adopted, the north and the south had held high-level negotiations and many-sided cooperation amid deep interests of all the fellow countrymen.

Since they came to power, however, the Lee Myung Bak group of traitors have maliciously abused the historic June 15 joint declaration and October 4 declaration and staged various kinds of military exercises with foreign forces, rendering the situation of the Korean Peninsula more acute.

The fact shows that with the traitors remaining in power in south Korea, can neither peace nor reunification be achieved on the peninsula.

All the compatriots should launch vigorous efforts for moving up the day of national reunification in line with the north-south declarations.