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Press Release
Canberra, February 11, 2003
It is great honour for me to be invited to the Australian Institute of International Affairs on the eve of our February national festival and have a chance to meet alt of you here who are interested in the Korean issue to brief on the current situation of my country, especially the nuclear issue.
I would like to take this opportunity to express my appreciation to Mr. Ross Cottrill, Executive Director of the Australian Institution of International Affairs for your kind invitation to this gathering.
First of all, I would like to remind you that upon the agreement between the Government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the Government of Australia, our two countries have resumed the diplomatic relations in order to develop friendly and cooperative relations and to promote peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region and the rest of the world as well, and the DPRK Embassy to Australia has started its work in Canberra from May last year.
I would like also to emphasize that the Government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea attaches a great significance to the development of friendly and cooperative relations with Australia, and is ready to develop this relations through the exchanges of various delegations, constructive and productive dialogue and cooperation, and to make contribution to prosperity, stability and peace of the region by promoting mutual understanding between the two countries.
This year, we will commemorate the 55th anniversary of founding of the DPRK. Since its foundation, the DPRK, has established the diplomatic relations with the almost every countries of the world except a few countries including the United States under the idea of independence, friendship and peace, and it has made every possible efforts for the world peace and security .
Our country, upholding the Juche idea as the guiding idea or the Party and the Government, has taken a series of policies to provide the independent and creative live in conformity with the interest of the popular masses, and today our people are making the vigorous efforts to build a powerful nation.
At the same time, the DPRK, from the first day of its foundation, has put forth several proposals to achieve the independent and peaceful reunification of the country which is the long-cherished aspiration of our nation, and it has made every possible efforts for its realization.
As you are all aware of it, the highest level talks between the north and the south has been held on June 15, 2000 and the North-South Joint Declaration has been adopted.
With the June 15 North-South Declaration as a milestone of the national reunification, our Government and People will spare no efforts to reunify the country by our own national efforts.
New dramatic changes have taken place in the situation on the Korean Peninsula and the rest of Northeast Asia in the Dew century.
Under the wise leadership of Comrade Kim Jong Il, the great leader of the Korean people inter-Korean relations and the DPRK's relations with Russia, China and Japan have entered a new important phase and bold measures have been taken to reconnect inter-Korean railroads which have remained cut for over half a century, settle the past with Japan and do away with the leftovers of the last century.
The DPRK has taken a series of new Steps in economic management and adopted one measure after another to reenergize the economy, including the establishment of a special economic region, in conformity with the changed situation and specific conditions of the country.
These developments practically contribute to peace in Asia and the rest of the world.
Almost all the countries except for the United States, therefore, welcomed and hailed them, a great encouragement to the DPRK.
With this background, we received Mr .Kelly, the special envoy of the US President on October last year with the expectation of solving the pending issue with the United States on the equal footings.
However, producing no evidence, he asserted that the DPRK has been actively engaged in the enriched uranium program in pursuit of possessing nuclear weapons in violation of the DPRK-U.S. agreed framework. He even intimidated the DPRK side by saying that there would be no dialogue with the U.S. unless the DPRK halts it, and the DPRK-Japan; and north-south relations would be jeopardized.
The U.S. attitude was so unilateral and high-handed that the DPRK was stunned by it.
As far as the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula is concerned, it cropped up as the U.S. has massively stockpiled nuclear weapons in South Korea and its vicinity and threatened the DPRK, a small country. With those weapons for nearly half a century, pursuing a hostile policy toward it in accordance with the strategy for world supremacy.
The DPRK-U.S. agreed framework was adopted in October 1994, but the U.S. has been deprived of the right to talk about the implementation of the framework since then.
Under the article 1 of the framework the U.S. is obliged to provide light water reactors to the DPRK by the year 2003 in return for the DPRK’s freezing of graphite moderated reactors and their related facilities.
But only site preparation for the LWR was made though 8 years have passed since the DPRK froze its nuclear facilities.
This will bring the DPRK an annual loss of 1,000 mw(e) in 2003 when light water reactor no.1 is scheduled to be completed and that of 2,000 mw(e) from the next year.
Under the article 2 of the framework the two sides are obliged to move toward full normalization of the political and economic relations.
Over the last 8 years, however, the U.S. has persistently pursued the hostile policy toward the DPRK and maintained economic sanctions on it. The former has gone the length of listing the latter as part of the "axis of evil".
Under the article 3 of the framework the U.S. is obliged to give formal assurances to the DPRK against the threat or use of nuclear weapons by the U.S. however, the U.S. listed the DPRK as a target of its pre-emptive nuclear attack.
Under article 4 of the framework and paragraph 7 of its confidential minute the DPRK is to allow nuclear inspections only after the "delivery of essential non-nuclear components for the first LWR unit, including turbines and generators" is completed. But, the U.S. has already come out with a unilateral demand for nuclear inspection in a bid to convince the international community of the DPRK's violation of the framework.
The U.S. has, in the final analysis, observed none of the four articles of the framework. It is only the U.S. that can know whether it had willingness to implement the framework when it was adopted or put a signature to it without sincerity, calculating that the DPRK would collapse sooner or later.
As I mentioned above, the Bush administration totally nullified the DPRK -U.S. joint statement and agreed framework.
Nobody would be so naive as to think that the DPRK would sit idle under such situation.
That was why the DPRK made itself very clear to the special envoy of the U.S. President that the DPRK was entitled to possess not only nuclear weapon but any type of weapon more powerful than that so as to defend its sovereignty and right to existence :from the ever-growing nuclear threat by the U.S.
The DPRK, which values sovereignty more than life, was left with no other proper answer to the U.S. behaving so arrogantly and impertinently.
Nevertheless, the DPRK, with greatest magnanimity, clarified that it was ready to seek a negotiated settlement of this issue on the following three conditions: Firstly, if the U.S. recognizes the DPRK's sovereignty, secondly, if it assures the DPRK of nonaggression and thirdly, if the U.S. does not hinder the economic development of the DPRK.
Nowadays, the U.S. and its followers, turning away their faces from our proposals, are trying to create the atmosphere of pressure convincing the international community sticking to their assertion that negotiations should be held after the DPRK puts down its arms. This is a very abnormal logic.
Then, how can the DPRK counter any attack with empty hands?
Their assertion is little short of demanding the DPRK yield to pressure, which means death.
Nobody can match anyone ready to die. This is the faith and will of the army and people of the DPRK determined to remain true to the army-based policy to the last.
The settlement of all problems with the DPRK, a small country, should be based on removing any threat to its sovereignty and right to existence.
However, the U.S. President Bush committed to such a very grave provocation as malignantly slandering the DPRK in a "state of union address” at congress on January 29.
He said we now know that the regime was deceiving the world, and developing those weapons all along, and today the North Korean regime is using its nuclear program to incite fear and seek concessions.
Bush has so far earned an ill-fame as an emotional backbiter, but his recent address clearly proves that he is a shameless charlatan reversing black and white under the eyes of the world and the incarnation of misanthropy as he rejects the people out of his favor for no reason.
Bush, commander-in-chief, said in great haste that the U.S. had no intention to invade North Korea. But, in actuality, he sent an aircraft carrier and long-range bombers to the East Sea of Korea.
The Korean people is a peace-loving people who never had their eyes on other country, a nation whose history began thousands of years ago when the U.S. did not exist in the world.
The demands of the DPRK still remain simple.
The DPRK does not seek to gain concessions from the U.S. by threatening it as Bush claimed, but urges the U.S. to stop its intervention and threat so that the Korean people may live in peace for themselves.
From this purport the DPRK proposed the U.S. to legally assure each other of non-aggression.
The U.S. was the first to have nuclear weapons and emerged as the world's largest possessor of weapons of mass destruction. Yet it is trying to mislead the public opinion by spreading the rumor that the DPRK is chiefly to blame for the nuclear issue. This is the height of shamelessness.
The U.S. ulterior motive in having persistently dodged the DPRK's proposal for concluding a non-aggression treaty between the DPRK and the U.S. has now been brought to daylight.
The United States instigated the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to adopt another ”resolution” against the DPRK on January 6 in the wake of a similar “resolution” made on November 29, 2002.
Under its manipulation, the IAEA in those "resolution" termed the DPRK “a criminal” and demanded its scrap what the US called a “nuclear program” at once by a verifiable way in disregard of the nature of the nuclear issue, a product of the US hostile policy toward the DPRK, and its unique status in which it declared the suspension of the effectuation of its withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Following the adoption of the latest "resolution", the IAEA director general issued an ultimatum that the agency would bring the matter to the UN security Council to apply sanctions against the DPRK unless it implements the "resolution" in a few weeks.
A particular mention should be made of the fact that the lAEA in the recent "resolution" kept mum about the US which has grossly violated the NPT and the DPRK-US Agreed Framework, but urged the DPRK, the victim, to unconditionally accept the US demand for disarmament and forfeit its right to self-defence, and thus the agency was praised by the US for "saying all what the US wanted to do."
After the appearance of the Bush administration, systematically violating the DPRK-US Agreed Framework, the US brought up another "nuclear suspicious" and stopped the supply of heavy oil, reducing the AF to a dead document.
It also answered the DPRK's sincere proposal for the conclusion of the DPRK-US non-aggression treaty and its patient efforts for negotiations with such threats as “blockade” and "military punishment" and with such an arrogant attitude as blustering that it may talk but negotiations are impossible.
The US went so far to instigate the IAEA to internationalize its moves to stifle the DPRK, putting its declaration of a war into practice. This has eliminated the last possibility of solving the nuclear issue of the Korean peninsula in a peaceful and fair way.
It was due to such nuclear war moves of the U.S. against the DPRK and the partiality of the IAEA that the DPRK was compelled to declare its withdrawal from the NPT in March 1993 when a touch-and-go situation was created on the Korean peninsula.
As it has become clear once again that the U.S. persistently seeks to stifle the DPRK at any cost and the IAEA is used as a tool for executing the US hostile policy towards the DPRK, we can no longer remain bound to the NPT, allowing the country's security and the dignity of our nation to be infringed upon.
Under the grave situation where our State's supreme interest are most seriously threatened, the DPRK government in the last January 10, adopted the following decisions to protect the sovereignty of the country and the nation and their right to existence and dignity.
Firstly, the DPRK government declares an automatic and immediate effectuation of its withdrawal from the NPT, on which "it unilaterally announced a moratorium as long as it deemed necessary" according to the June 11, 1993, DPRK-Us Joint Statement, now that the US has unilaterally abandoned its commitments to stop nuclear threat and renounce hostility towards the DPRK in line with the same statement.
Secondly, it declares that the DPRK withdrawing from the NPT is totally free from the binding force of the Safeguards Agreement with lAEA under its Article 3.
Though we pullout of the NPT, we have no intention to produce nuclear weapons and our nuclear activities at this stage will be confined only to peaceful purposes such as the production of electricity.
If the US drops its hostile policy to stifle the DPRK and stops its nuclear threat to the DPRK, the DPRK may prove through a separate verification between the DPRK and the US that it does not make any nuclear weapon.
In conclusion, as for the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula, it is a product of the U.S. hostile policy towards the DPRK and it cropped up as the U.S. has massively stockpiled nuclear weapons in South Korea and its vicinity and threatened the DPRK with those weapons.
Therefore, the nuclear issue on the Korean peninsula is the bilateral issue between the DPRK and the U.S. and it could in no way be a matter between the DPRK and the international community.
We cannot but mention that no other country in the world community except the U.S. has singled the DPRK out as a member of an "axis of evil” and a target of pre-emptive nuclear attacks.
It is not the international community but the United States which has brought the present nuclear crisis to the Korean Peninsula in a bid to isolate and stifle the DPRK.
That is why we have already clarified its stand that it is strongly opposed to any attempt to internationalize the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula and will never attend any form of "multilateral talks" over it.
Through our experience, we were convinced that the bush administration is an untrustworthy rogue group, which did not hesitate to turn aside not only the bilateral agreements the preceding administration concluded, to meet its partisan interests, but also international conventions such as the ABM Treaty and the Kyoto Protocol.
That is why we contend that it is important to conclude a non-aggression treaty between the DPRK and the U.S. as it will have binding force after going through congressional procedures.
We are ready to solve the nuclear issue on the Korean peninsula peacefully and in a most fair way through the direct and equal negotiations with the U.S. at any time.
The ball is in the court of the U.S. side.