CPRC Clarifies Principled Stand on National Reunification

Pyongyang, June 14 (KCNA) -- The Committee for Peaceful Reunification of the Country of the DPRK Wednesday released a statement on the lapse of 17 years since the publication of the June 15 joint declaration. Noting if the north and the south had advanced straightly along the road indicated by the June 15 joint declaration, a landmark for reunification in the new century, and its practical programme October 4 declaration, the gate to national reunification, the long-cherished desire of all Koreans, would have already been widely opened, the statement said: But the north-south relations, which had advanced along the road of harmony and prosperity, sustained serious setbacks and reached total catastrophe due to the U.S. persistently seeking to hinder the Korean nation's reunification and the desperate confrontation moves of the pro-American regimes that appeared in succession under its backstage manipulation. The glorious June 15 era has completely gone. Now that a dramatic regime change has been witnessed in south Korea as a result of the struggle of the public strongly desirous of national reunification and development of the north-south relations, the attention of Koreans and other peoples in the world is focused on the new crucial decision and option to be made by the authorities of the north and the south. Then, the statement clarified the following principled stand of the DPRK on the development of the north-south relations and the issue of national reunification: 1. Whoever was born on this land should hold higher the banner of independence, the banner of By Our Nation Itself and adopt the transparent stand to dedicate to the improvement of the north-south relations and the sacred cause of national reunification. 2. The south Korean authorities should bear in mind that the road to reunification and rosy future of the nation will be opened when they accept promoting national unity as immutable truth, away from confrontation idea hostile toward the compatriots. 3. We make it clear once again that it is our invariable stand that measures to remove the acute military tensions on the Korean peninsula should be urgently taken before anything else. -0-