The issue of Korea's reunification spawned as the territory of the country was divided due to outsiders at the end of the Second World War.

Taking to heart more than anyone else the misfortune and pain the Koreans have undergone due to their split though they had lived in one and the same territory as a homogeneous nation generation after generation, President Kim Il Sung and leader Kim Jong Il devoted all their wisdom and energies to achieving the reunification of the country all their lives.

After the liberation of the country the President convened the historic Joint Conference of Representatives of Political Parties and Social Organizations in North and South Korea, arousing all the Koreans to the nationwide struggle to foil the moves of the sycophantic and traitorous forces to divide the nation and ushering in a heyday of the reunification movement through the solidarity and alliance of the whole nation.

He clarified the three principles of national reunification in the July 4 joint statement and set forth the 10-point programme of the great unity of the whole nation and the proposal for founding the Democratic Federal Republic of Koryo, thus providing basic guidelines for solving the reunification issue of the country.

The President energetically worked for decades for the country's reunification and left his last autograph on a historic document related to the national reunification in the last moments of his life.

Kim Jong Il opened up a bright prospect for independent reunification, regarding national reunification as his noble mission.

He authored "Let Us Carry Out the Great Leader Comrade Kim Il Sung's Instructions for National Reunification" and other famous works, formulating the President's idea and line on national reunification as the three charters for national reunification, laying down the five-point policy for the great unity of the nation and providing a powerful weapon for realizing independent reunification.

He made sure that the June 15 North-South Joint Declaration and the October 4 declaration were made public as a valuable boon for achieving independent reunification, peace and prosperity.

The cause of national reunification that had dynamically advanced along the road indicated by Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il is undergoing great trials due to the vicious challenge and obstructive moves of the anti-reunification forces at home and abroad.

After the emergence of the conservative regime in south Korea, all the achievements made in the June 15 era were brought to naught, the north-south relations are at rock bottom and the danger of a nuclear war is increasing with each passing day on the Korean peninsula.

The reality in which the competition for hegemony is festering among big powers over the Korean peninsula proves that if the Korean nation persists in confrontation that does more harm than good, it can not get rid of a bottomless quagmire after being played into the hands of outsiders.

It is none other than the Koreans who are keenly interested in national reunification and they are also directly responsible for the reunification.

Now is the crucial time when the north and the south should carve out with responsibility the destiny of the nation and its future, shouldering upon themselves the dignity and honor of the nation.

An exhaustive political strife among compatriots is likely to spark a national disaster at a crucial time when all of them should pool efforts and wisdom for the cause common to the nation. This tragic situation should never be allowed to go on.

It is the way of developing the national reunification movement to positively support and respond to the special proposal of the National Defence Commission of the DPRK and the statement of the DPRK government calling for paving a wide avenue for improving the north-south relations and achieving the independent reunification.