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Kim Jong Un
New Year Address for 2017
(Extract)
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Last year, in reflection of the national desire for reunification and the requirements of the times, we put forward the Juche-oriented line and policy of reunification at the Seventh Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea and made strenuous efforts to this end. However, the south Korean authorities turned a deaf ear to our patriotic appeal and ignored our sincere proposal. Instead, they clung to their sanctions-and-pressure schemes against the DPRK and persisted in clamouring for a war against it, thus driving inter-Korean relations towards the worst catastrophe.
Last year, south Korea witnessed a massive anti-“government” struggle spreading far and wide to shake the reactionary ruling machinery to its foundations. This resistance involving all south Korean people, which left an indelible mark in the history of their struggle, was an outburst of pent-up grudge and indignation against the conservative regime that had been resorting to fascist dictatorship, anti-popular policy, sycophantic and traitorous acts and confrontation with their compatriots.
This year we will mark the 45th anniversary of the historic July 4 Joint Statement and the 10th anniversary of the October 4 Declaration. This year we should open up a broad avenue to independent reunification through a concerted effort of the whole nation.
Positive measures should be taken to improve inter-Korean relations, avoid acute military confrontation and remove the danger of war between north and south.
The improvement of inter-Korean relations is the starting-point for peace and reunification, and it is a pressing demand of the whole nation. Any politician, if he or she remains a passive onlooker to the current deadlock between the two sides, can neither claim to be fully discharging his or her responsibility and role for the nation nor enjoy public support. Every manner of abuses and slanders aimed at offending the other party and inciting confrontation cannot be justified on any account, and an immediate stop should be put to the malicious smear campaign and other acts of hostility towards the DPRK, all designed for the overthrow of its system and any other “change.”
We are consistent in our stand to safeguard the security of the compatriots and peace of the country without fighting with the fellow countrymen. The south Korean authorities should not aggravate the situation by finding fault with our exercise of the right to self-defence thoughtlessly, but respond positively to our sincere efforts to prevent military conflict between north and south and ease the tension.
They should also discontinue arms buildup and war games.
The whole nation should pool their will and efforts to usher in a heyday of the nationwide reunification movement.
All the Korean people in the north, in the south and abroad should achieve solidarity, make concerted efforts and unite on the principle of subordinating everything to national reunification, the common cause of the nation, and revitalize the reunification movement on a nationwide scale. They should promote active contact and exchange with each other irrespective of differences in their ideologies and systems, regions and ideals, and classes and social strata, and hold a pan-national, grand meeting for reunification involving all the political parties and organizations including the authorities in the north and south, as well as the compatriots of all strata at home and abroad. We will readily join hands with anyone who prioritizes the fundamental interests of the nation and is desirous of improving inter-Korean relations.
It is necessary to frustrate the challenges of the anti-reunification forces at home and abroad who go against the aspiration of the nation for reunification.
We must put an end to the moves for aggression and intervention by the foreign forces including the United States that is occupying south Korea and tries to realize the strategy for achieving hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region, and wage a dynamic pan-national struggle to thwart the moves of the traitorous and sycophantic anti-reunification forces like Park Geun Hye who, failing to see clearly who is the real arch-enemy of the nation, is trying to find a way out in confrontation with the fellow countrymen.
Well aware of the will of the Korean nation to reunify their country, the United States must no longer cling to the scheme of whipping up national estrangement by inciting the anti-reunification forces in south Korea to confrontation with the fellow countrymen and war. It must make a courageous decision to roll back its anachronistic policy hostile towards the DPRK. The international community that values independence and justice should oppose the moves of the United States and its vassal forces aimed at wrecking peace on the Korean peninsula and checking its reunification, and the neighbouring countries should act in favour of our nation’s aspiration and efforts for reunification.
All the fellow countrymen in the north, in the south and abroad should do something to make this year a meaningful year of a new phase in independent reunification by stepping up a nationwide grand march towards reunification through the concerted effort of the nation.
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