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North Korea on Thursday called on South Koreans to rise up against their government. "The South Korean people should more actively kindle the flames of a struggle crushing the fascist rule of the conservative authorities," a New Year's statement issued by Workers Party, Army and youth military said.
It slammed the Lee Myung-bak government as "a ruling force intent on reviving fascist dictatorship and inter-Korean confrontation, totally denying the June 15, 2000 and Oct. 4, 2004 Summit Declarations." It is unusual for the annual New Year's editorial, which usually sums up the policies of leader Kim Jong-il, to call for an uprising in the South.
But the statement had friendly words for the U.S. "The independent foreign policy of our republic to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula and defend the peace and security of Northeast Asia is demonstrating its vitality," it said. "We will develop relations with the countries that are friendly to us." This is the first time that the term "denuclearization" has appeared in the New Year's statement.
"This is a message that the North will take a positive attitude in negotiations with the Obama administration" in the U.S., said Prof. Kim Yong-hyun, a North Korea specialist at Dongguk University. In the same vein, the statement omitted the usual call for withdrawal of the U.S. Forces Korea and the suspension of joint Seoul-Washington military exercises. That means, "despite strong criticism of the South, that the North is cautiously seeking improved relations with the South," Prof. Lee Jo-won of Joong Ang University claimed.
The statement mentions "economic recovery" before military and ideological issues amid the global economic crisis. It cites not reform and opening but the Chollima (Flying Horse) Movement of the 1950s that mobilized labor on a massive scale.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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