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NKorean press urges SKorea to comply with Joint Declaration

PYONGYANG, June 15, /ITAR-TASS/. North Korean media on Sunday urges South Korea to take steps towards the implementation of the Joint Declarations of June 15, 2000, which “determines the way for reconciliation and independent unification of the two parts of the Korean peninsula,” the leading party newspaper Rodong Sinmun writes.

The newspaper criticizes the South Korean authorities for “not willing to abandon the policy of confrontation with compatriots in the North”. The refusal to comply with the Joint Declaration testifies to Seoul’s intentions “to do damage to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) in alliance with foreign forces”.

Koreans “will achieve national reconciliation, unity and independent unification despite confrontation from forces of reaction,” the government newspaper Minju Choson writes in an article devoted to the 14th anniversary of the Joint Declaration.

In May, South Korea rejected DPRK’s offer to hold a joint ceremony marking an anniversary of the first inter-Korean summit in 2000. According to Pyongyang, this event cold help to defuse tensions on the peninsula. However, the South Korean Ministry of Unification “considered it inappropriate to mark an anniversary of the summit with North Korea taking into consideration the present state of relations between the two countries”.

The Joint Declaration of June 15, 2000 was sighed during a visit to Pyongyang by President of South Korea (in 1998-2003) Kim Dae-jung, who met with former North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. North Korea sees the declaration as “a milestone on the road towards unification of the Fatherland in favour of changing the fate of the entire Korean nation”.

On October 4, 2007, Kim Jong Il and South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun (2003-2008) signed a declaration on peace on the Korean peninsula and common prosperity of the Korean people. The document summed up the results of the 2007 inter-Korean summit. It appealed for peace, common prosperity and an end to hostility in the military sphere. But after President Lee Myung-bak came to power in February 2008, political tensions persisted in relations between the two Koreas. North Korea believes that the policy of Park Geun-hye, who succeeded to Lee Myung-bak in 2013, does not differ from her predecessor’s policy aimed against Pyongyang.

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