North Korea said yesterday that polls in which voters gave leader Kim Jong-il 100 percent support showed the communist state was "firm as a rock" in the face of economic woes and isolation over its nuclear ambitions.
The 61-year-old Kim was one of 687 deputies elected unopposed on Sunday for seats in North Korea's rubber-stamp legislature, the Supreme People's Assembly.
North Korea's official KCNA news agency quoted the Central Election Committee as saying turnout was 99.9 percent of registered voters and that 100 percent of the votes were cast for the sole candidates.
"This is an expression of all the voters' support and trust in the DPRK government and a manifestation of our army and people's steadfast will to consolidate the people's power as firm as a rock and accomplish the revolutionary cause," KCNA said.
DPRK stands for Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the official title of the country of 22 million Kim has ruled since inheriting power upon the death of his father, state founder Kim Il-sung in 1994.
The election of Kim in a military district was "an expression of the absolute support and trust of all the servicemen and the people in him," KCNA said in a separate report.
North Korean state television showed rare footage of Kim turning out to vote at the Kim Il-sung Military University in Pyongyang. Wearing his customary synthetic leisure suit, Kim shook hands and received flowers from officers before voting.
Kim faces the challenge of reviving an economy, thought by outside experts to be near collapse and plagued by dire food and fuel shortages -- troubles compounded by North Korea's political isolation over its pursuit of nuclear weapons.
North Korea and the US said last week they had agreed to hold six-way talks on the nuclear standoff. China, Japan, Russia and South Korea will also attend talks expected to take place in Beijing this month or next.
The prospect of fresh talks follows months of tension after Washington announced last October that Pyongyang had disclosed it was pursuing a covert nuclear weapons program.
Although North Korea's parliament nominally has the power to write laws, approve the cabinet and vote on the national budget, analysts said any changes in one of the world's most tightly controlled political systems would be implemented top down.
"If anything changes, it will happen at the top executive level and trickle down to the local bodies for support, but not from the legislative or local level," said Kim Hyung-joon, professor of political science at Seoul's Myungji University.
"This election will serve to gather support for the agenda that the North's administration seeks to carry out -- not that there will be any big change in the political climate," he said.
Meanwhile, North Korea said yesterday that talks on the crisis surrounding its nuclear ambitions would take place soon in Beijing, according to South Korea's Yonhap news agency.
"Six-party talks on resolving the nuclear issue between [North Korea] and the United States will be held soon in Beijing," Yonhap quoted a North Korean foreign ministry spokesman as saying through Pyongyang's state media.
Details and timing of the talks are still being discussed, but US and South Korean officials have said they could come as early as this month. Other officials have mentioned September as a target date for talks.
In related news, the US will not begin trading aid for security assurances at crisis talks with North Korea, Secretary of State Colin Powell said in a interview with US media.
Moreover, "there will be no secrets," although the six-party format of the talks may provide opportunities for one-on-one exchanges, Powell told selected US media outlets in a private interview released by the US Department of State on Sunday.
"There will certainly be an opportunity at a six party-meeting for them to say something directly to us if they choose to do so," Powell said of Pyongyang.
"There will be no secrets," Powell told his interviewers on Friday. "Anything the North Koreans say to us will be shared with our friends and partners, because this is going to be an open, transparent process."
He ruled out the non-aggression pact which Kim Jong-Il's government has demanded, while remaining vague on what Washington might offer the North, and when, as an incentive for giving up its nuclear program and addressing other concerns.
"We're not doing non-aggression pacts ... we, as a practice, don't do that. But there are ways to talk about security, and there are ways to talks about intent," he said.
"Our policy, [US President George W. Bush's] policy, is to work diplomatically with our partners and the North Koreans to find a diplomatic political solution to the problem," Powell said.
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