Now all Koreans are hoping that the Panmunjom declaration would be honestly implemented to pave a broad avenue toward peace, prosperity and reunification.

The Panmunjom declaration serves as a great programme for national reunification common to the Korean nation as it inherited the June 15 joint declaration and the October 4 declaration in an overall way.

It clarified that the north and the south would connect the severed blood vessel of the Korean nation and bring earlier co-prosperity and independent reunification of the country by achieving comprehensive and decisive improvement and development in the north-south relations.

Notably, it confirmed the principle of national independence that the Korean nation determines its destiny by itself, stressing the need to make a decisive turn in improvement and development of the inter-Korean relations by thoroughly implementing the declarations and all agreements adopted already by the north and the south.

It also specified the practical measures for defusing acute military tensions existing between the north and the south, removing the danger of war and establishing a permanent and durable peace mechanism.

If the Panmunjom declaration is successfully implemented, a new era of national reconciliation, peace and prosperity will open on the Korean peninsula and it will have a good effect on the regional and global peace and security.

That's why the entire nation has expressed full support and approval for the Panmunjom declaration, praising it as a solemn signal of a new start of the improvement of the north-south relations and as a historic landmark for bringing about a new era of national concord and independent reunification.

It is important to have a righteous attitude toward the implementation of the Panmunjom declaration in order to actively promote the improvement of the north-south relations and peace and prosperity of the Korean peninsula, as desired by all Koreans.

The joint agreements adopted between the north and the south in the past failed to witness desired fruitions owing to the obstructions by the forces remaining averse to their implementation.

The anti-reunification conservative forces of south Korea slandered the June 15 joint declaration and the October 4 declaration as "pro-communist document benefiting enemy" and "promissory note bound to be dishonored". They desperately checked their implementation by persisting in mad-cap confrontation with the compatriots in the north.

All facts show that the attitude and stand in the implementation of the joint agreement of the nation serve as a touchstone for discerning who hopes for fundamental improvement of the north-south relations and peace and reunification of the Korean peninsula and who opposes them.

All Koreans should build a peaceful and prosperous reunified country on this land at any cost by turning out as one in the struggle for implementing the Panmunjom declaration.