DPRK: June 15 Joint Declaration sacred bond for realizing reunification

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) said Thursday that the June 15 Joint Declaration is a sacred bond between the sides of Korea and the sole foundation for bringing about national reunification.

In a dispatch carried by the official daily Rodong Sinmun, Pyongyang urged South Korean President Moon Jae-in to prove whether he is truly seeking peaceful reunification by endorsing the declaration, which was backed by two previous South Korean presidents.

"It is a monumental document and the supreme reunification program of the nation that put the principle of national reunification and the ways for achieving it into an agreement of the Korean nation," said the official newspaper of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea.

Late DPRK top leader Kim Jong Il and then South Korean President Kim Dae-jung signed the declaration 17 years ago in Pyongyang during the first summit of the two leaders from both sides of the Korean Peninsula since the 1950-53 Korean War which led to the division of the nation.

Roh Moo-hyun, another late South Korean president, also backed the spirit of the June 15 Joint Declaration by signing another declaration with Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang in October 2007 calling for peaceful reunification of Korea.

"How to approach the said declaration will distinguish reunification from division, peace from war and patriotism from treachery," the newspaper said.

"The adoption of the June 15 Joint Declaration was a special event as it put a period to the history of distrust and confrontation ... and ushered in a new era of national reconciliation and unity, reunification and peace and prosperity," it added.

The DPRK has blamed South Korea's former presidents Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye, who ruled South Korea over the past decade, for bringing about a "total collapse" of inter-Korean relations.

However, Moon, who was elected new president a month ago, is widely forecast to inherit a so-called "Sunshine Policy" of trying to enhance relations with the DPRK through economic cooperation and civilian exchanges.

(ASIA PACIFIC DAILY)