In the early 1970s, President Kim Il Sung put forward a policy of wide-ranging negotiations to make a breakthrough in the deadlocked north-south relations.

He personally met the chief delegate of south Korea to the north-south high-ranking political talks in Pyongyang and advanced the Three Principles of National Reunification -- independence, peaceful reunification and great national unity -- for discussion at the talks.

The north and south of Korea made public a joint statement on July 4, Juche 61 (1972), which declared the principles as reunification program common to the nation.

The three principles have served as vital to relations between the north and the south in later years.

The historic Pyongyang north-south summit in June 2000 yielded the June 15 North-South Joint Declaration, the embodiment of the principles. The joint declaration was greatly conducive to turning the inter-Korean relations, interwoven with distrust and confrontation, into the relationship of reconciliation and cooperation.

The Korean nation's enthusiasm for reunification was further fueled by the adoption of the October 4 Declaration, an action program for implementing the June 15 Joint Declaration.

However, the present south Korean ruling quarters are opposed to all of the declarations, as their predecessor did.

For instances, they did not approve a joint national event scheduled for June 15, laying hurdle to the opening of the talks between authorities of the north and the south of Korea, which were arranged with so much efforts. Some days ago, they went the length of opening to public the minutes of the 2007 north-south summit, an act unprecedented in political history.

Their hostile moves are getting more undisguised with each passing day.

Anyhow, the Korean nation will surely achieve the independent reunification, peace and prosperity by dint of reconciliation and unity, deterring the obstructive moves of the separatist forces.