Rodong Sinmun Sunday in a bylined article says the June 15 joint declaration serves as an immortal banner of independent reunification whose validity and vitality the Korean nation has keenly realized in practice.

The article goes on:

The June 15 joint declaration and the October 4 declaration should be certainly respected and implemented as they are programmes for reunification common to the nation, the only ones acceptable to the Koreans in the north and the south despite their differing ideologies and social systems.

All the Koreans desirous of improved inter-Korean relations and peace and reunification of the country should positively support the north-south declarations, attaching greatest importance to them, and make every possible effort to promote reconciliation, solidarity and alliance under the banner of "By our nation itself".

It is inevitable that the inter-Korean relations will be plunged into a catastrophe if the joint declarations are not respected and implemented. This is evidenced by the five year-long rule of traitor Lee Myung Bak ill-famed for confrontation against reunification.

The stand and attitude toward the joint declarations are a litmus test of dialogue and confrontation, peace and war, reunification and division.

The south Korean authorities should face up to the aspiration of fellow countrymen and the trend of the times and abandon the anachronistic concept of confrontation.