Late N. Korean leader Kim Il-sung supported Korea's denuclearization: Chinese dossier

BEIJING, Nov. 16 (Yonhap) -- North Korea's founder and late leader Kim Il-sung
officially supported denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula, a declassified Chinese
diplomatic document showed Sunday, verifying Pyongyang's repeated claims amid the
ongoing nuclear standoff.
The document declassified by China's Foreign Ministry over the past week reveals
a letter that Kim, father of the current North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, wrote
to Zhou Enlai, China's premier, around Oct. 30, 1964, in which he says nuclear
weapons should be banned on the peninsula and be destroyed.
In the reply to Zhou, titled "Letter from President Kim Il-sung to Premier Zou
Enlai," Kim writes: "The Democratic People's Republic of Korea has consistently
maintained that nuclear weapons should be completely banned and nuclear weapons
should be thoroughly destroyed."
"The Korean people will stand shoulder to shoulder with the peace-loving people
of the whole world for the realization of the complete ban and thorough
destruction of nuclear weapons," he writes.
The letter confirmed what North Korean officials, including the current leader
Kim Jong-il, have repeatedly claimed in talks with South Korean counterparts that
Pyongyang supports denuclearization in principle.
In his summit in 2007 with then South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun, Kim Jong-il
said, "We have no intention of having nuclear weapons. It's the dying wish (of
leader Kim Il-sung). We are firm on this position."
Kim Young-nam, North Korea's second-ranking leader and president of the Supreme
People's Assembly, also told visiting South Korean Unification Minister Lee
Jae-joung in 2007: "Denuclearlization of the Korean Peninsula is the dying wish
of leader Kim Il-sung, for which we'll continue our efforts."
Contrary to its call for denuclearization, however, North Korea supported China's
nuclear development in the 1960s as contributing to peace around the world,
according to the document.
In the letter to Zhou, Kim says, "China's possession of nuclear weapons and
successful achievement of its first nuclear test is a defensive measure against
the nuclear threats posed by the United States and is clearly the right thing to
do."
After China conducted its second nuclear test in 1965, following the first one a
year earlier, Kim congratulated Chinese President Mao Zedong and other leaders in
a letter, saying: "On behalf of Korea's Workers' Party, the Supreme People's
Assembly and the Korean people, I send our warm congratulations to the Communist
party and all people of China for your success in the second nuclear test."
He also wrote, "China's achievements will play a big role in coping with nuclear
threats from the imperial U.S. and protecting the peace of the people of
socialist countries."
North Korea's founder died of a heart attack in 1994.
Kim's letters were part of the 41,097 diplomatic documents China began releasing
on Wednesday. The declassified documents were filed between 1961 and 1965 and
also include files on Beijing's relations with the Soviet Union and India.
(END)