North Korea, 2004

On behalf of the

delegation of the Democratic People’s Republic of

Korea, I should like at the outset to congratulate you,

Mr. Ping, on your election as President of the General

Assembly at its fifty-ninth session. I believe that your

skilful leadership of this session will yield fruitful

results. I also appreciate the active efforts of the

Secretary-General, Mr. Kofi Annan, to ensure the

central role of the United Nations in addressing major

international issues.

Four years have passed since we marked the

beginning of the new century. However, humankind is

still confronted with grave challenges in its efforts to

realize the aspirations of peoples to build a peaceful

and prosperous world.

Unilateralism and high-handedness are becoming

increasingly evident, giving rise to aggression,

arbitrariness and instability in many parts of the world.

Consequently, the vicious circle in which the

sovereignty and interests of weak and small countries

are trampled for the sake of the exclusive interests of

certain other countries continues unabated.

Today, the main factors undermining international

peace and stability are unilateralism and high-handed

acts based on the logic of power. The challenges facing

humankind today require, more urgently than ever,

United Nations Member States to strengthen their joint

efforts to seek to ensure equitable international

relations based on multilateralism that fully observe

the universal principles of respect for sovereignty,

equality, territorial integrity and mutual benefit.

One of the regions where unilateralism and high-

handedness are most rampant is North-East Asia — to

be more specific, the Korean peninsula. On the Korean

peninsula, the national division forcibly brought about

by outside forces has continued for more than half a

century, and the danger of war is snowballing, owing to

extreme attempts by the United States to isolate and

stifle the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and

to threats of pre-emptive strikes against it.

At this very moment, all kinds of sophisticated

war equipment are being deployed in and around the

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Korean peninsula, targeting the Democratic People’s

Republic of Korea.

The acute political and military situation

prevailing in and around the Korean peninsula proves

clearly once again how right it was of the Democratic

People’s Republic of Korea to have built up its strong

self-defensive military power to prevent war and

ensure peace, upholding the Songun policy of the

respected General Kim Jong Il.

The more vicious the attempts of outside forces

to isolate and stifle the Democratic People’s Republic

of Korea, the higher our army and people, firmly

united around their leader, hold up the banner of

Songun and push ahead with their struggle to build a

prosperous and powerful State, with hope for the future

and devotion to the socialist cause.

The Songun policy — the independent policy of

the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea — serves

as a reliable deterrent to ensure peace and security, not

only on the Korean peninsula, but also in North-East

Asia and the rest of the world. We feel great pride and

self-confidence in that respect.

The reunification of the country is a prerequisite

for achieving a durable peace on the Korean peninsula,

and we are steadfast in our determination to achieve

national reunification, independently, on the basis of

the North-South Joint Declaration of 15 June.

That Joint Declaration is one of national

independence, as well as a milestone of reunification

indicating the path towards national reconciliation,

collaboration and reunification.

Various actions aimed at national co-prosperity

were begun in accordance with the lofty spirit of the

Joint Declaration. The connecting of railways and

roads has proceeded, linking up the once-severed main

artery of the country; contacts and mutual travel at all

levels increased; and inter-Korean economic

cooperation has been guaranteed at the institutional

level.

It is regrettable, however, that that tortuous

process of reconciliation and cooperation between the

north and the south of Korea was not sustained until

durable peace and reunification could be achieved.

That is because the process is unwelcome to the United

States, which is therefore dead-set against improved

relations and the ongoing cooperative activities, which

are taking place at all levels between the north and the

south of Korea.

The United States should no longer hamper the

efforts of the north and the south of Korea to achieve

national reconciliation, collaboration and reunification.

No matter how the situation may change in the

future, the Government of the Democratic People’s

Republic of Korea will continue to strive to overcome

all the challenges of the anti-reunification forces within

and without, and to open up a broad path leading to the

independent reunification of the country through

national cooperation, based on the great proposition,

“By our nation itself”.

I would like to take this opportunity to clarify

once again the principled stand of our Government

regarding the nuclear issue between the Democratic

People’s Republic of Korea and the United States.

As I have made clear time and again from this

rostrum, the nuclear issue is the product of the deep-

rooted hostile policy towards the Democratic People’s

Republic of Korea pursued by the United States for

more than half a century. In other words, given the fact

that the current United States Administration, which is

accustomed to rejecting our system, has been

attempting to eliminate the Democratic People’s

Republic of Korea by force, while designating it part of

an “axis of evil” and a target for pre-emptive nuclear

strikes, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea has

been left with no other option than to possess a nuclear

deterrent.

Peace is very precious to our people, who have

been living for more than half a century with the

heartbreaking pain of national division, forcibly

brought about by outside forces, and under constant

threat from the world’s only super-Power.

Our people aspire to peace more than others, but

they never beg for peace. The peace that they want to

achieve is the peace of an independent life, not the

peace of slaves, deprived of freedom.

The confrontation on the Korean peninsula today

is, in essence, a confrontation between foreign forces

intruding into someone’s home and the owners of that

home struggling to defend it.

The nuclear deterrent capability of the

Democratic People’s Republic of Korea constitutes a

legitimate means of self-defence to counter the ever-

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growing nuclear threat of the United States and its

aggression against the Democratic People’s Republic

of Korea, as well as a reliable means to defend the

sovereignty, peace and security of the country.

The denuclearization of the Korean peninsula is

our goal, and it is the consistent position of the

Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to address

peacefully the nuclear issue between our country and

the United States through dialogue and negotiation.

If the United States were to renounce practically

its hostile policy towards the Democratic People’s

Republic of Korea, including the cessation of its

nuclear threats, the Democratic People’s Republic of

Korea would, accordingly, be willing to scrap its

nuclear deterrent.

On the basis of that position, the Government of

the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea proposed a

package solution underpinned by the word-for-word

and action-for-action principle aimed at achieving a

peaceful settlement of the nuclear issue. As the first

step towards that end, we offered the flexible “reward

for freeze” proposal.

In this regard, at the third round of the six-party

talks last June, the countries concerned shared the view

that it was important that both sides adhere to the

word-for-word and action-for-action principle and the

“corresponding measures for freeze” approach, and

reached an agreement.

The “reward for freeze” proposal provides for the

Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to freeze all

nuclear-weapon-related facilities and the output from

their operations, on the condition that the United States

abandon its hostile policy, in particular its demands

relating to the complete, verifiable and irreversible

dismantlement of our nuclear programme and, at the

same time, that it lift its economic sanctions and

blockade against the Democratic People’s Republic of

Korea, remove the Democratic People’s Republic of

Korea from its list of the sponsors of terrorism and

participate in an energy compensation scheme

involving two million kilowatts of capacity.

By offering this proposal, it is our intention, first,

to build mutual confidence, and, eventually, to resolve

the nuclear issue fundamentally by addressing each

other’s concerns and meeting respective demands step

by step, on the basis of simultaneous actions, given

that the current situation is characterized by hostile

relations between the two countries and extreme

distrust.

The proposed “reward for freeze” process would

be a confidence-building measure between the

Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the United

States. Such confidence will be possible only when the

United States rewards us for imposing a freeze.

It is only natural that everything should have a

beginning and an order. From that point of view, our

freeze will be the first step towards the eventual

dismantling of our nuclear programme. Of course, the

freeze will be followed by objective verification.

In order to further clarify our will to dismantle

the nuclear deterrent, we had intended to include in our

freeze a halt to the manufacture, testing and transfer of

nuclear weapons. The United States, however,

disregarding the common understanding and agreement

reached at the third round of six-party talks, has further

intensified its hostile and increasingly overt acts

against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea,

even openly announcing that there would be no reward

for the freezing and dismantling of our nuclear

facilities. Most recently, the United States adopted a

bill on human rights in North Korea and thus made it

legal to provide financial and material support for

overthrowing our system and to force third countries to

do so.

The United States has gone so far as to slander

and debase the supreme leadership of its dialogue

partner. It also forces us to disarm ourselves like a

defeated nation, thus attempting to forcibly dismantle

our nuclear programme first and to overthrow our

system through complete, verifiable, irreversible

dismantlement. Consequently, the basis of negotiations,

which were hardly moving towards a resolution of the

nuclear issue, has been completely destroyed. If the

United States wishes to coexist peacefully with the

Democratic People’s Republic of Korea by abandoning

its hostile policy, the nuclear issue will be resolved

properly.

With regard to the six-party talks, the Democratic

People’s Republic of Korea is willing to resume them.

Nevertheless, the increasingly hostile policy of the

United States and the clandestine nuclear-related

experiments recently revealed in South Korea are

major stumbling blocks to the continuation of the talks.

Given this serious situation, in which the basis of the

negotiations has been totally destroyed and the secret

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nuclear-related experiments in South Korea have not

yet been clarified, we are unable to participate in the

talks aimed at discussing the nuclear-weapons

programme. Therefore, if the six-party talks are to be

resumed, the basis for the talks demolished by the

United States should be properly restored and the truth

of the secret nuclear experiments in South Korea

clarified completely.

I take this opportunity to extend my gratitude to

the States Members of the United Nations for their

active support for and understanding of our principled

stand and hope that they will continue to contribute to

the peaceful settlement of the nuclear issue between

the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the

United States by maintaining their balanced approach.

If the United Nations is to fulfil its mission for

international peace and security and socio-economic

development, it should play a leading role in

addressing the major international issues in accordance

with the objectives and principles of its Charter. To that

end, the United Nations should no longer tolerate

unilateralism and high-handedness, which constitute a

serious violation of the Charter and existing

international law. Disputes should be resolved

peacefully through dialogue and negotiations, and there

is no justification whatsoever for the unilateral use of

force, such as the armed invasion of sovereign States.

Moreover, the Organization should be

democratized so that all international issues can be

resolved in the common interests of the Member States.

In that regard, our delegation is of the view that the

General Assembly should be empowered to review and

approve the resolutions of the Security Council relating

to sanctions and the use of force directly affecting

international peace and security.

The reform of the Security Council should be

undertaken in such a way as to enable it to ensure the

full representation and interests of the non-aligned and

other developing countries, which account for the

overwhelming majority of Member States and

contribute to a fair solution to disputes. In addition,

practical measures should be taken to actively assist

the developing countries in their efforts to achieve

sustainable development by strengthening the role of

the United Nations and its affiliated organs in the

socio-economic fields.

The Government of the Democratic People’s

Republic of Korea will in the future continue to regard

independence, peace and friendship as the main ideals

of its foreign policy and further strengthen its friendly

and cooperative relations with all States Members of

the United Nations that respect our sovereignty and

actively contribute to international efforts to establish a

just, equitable and new world order.