North Korea marked its 61st anniversary yesterday with a vow to “mercilessly annihilate the US imperialists” if they attack.
Pyongyang also pledged to pursue friendly global relations.
North Korean state TV played patriotic songs calling for eternal loyalty to leader Kim Jong-il for building a “paradise” on the Korean Peninsula, while the country’s main newspaper issued a lengthy editorial pledging to defeat any US aggression.
PHOTO: REUTERS
“Today, the US imperialists and other enemies are increasingly running amok over its new war plot to stifle our republic with its forces,” the Rodong Sinmun editorial said.
If the US attacks, the North will “mobilize all military strengths and mercilessly annihilate the aggressors,” it said.
It also praised Kim’s “military first” policy, under which he has devoted much of the impoverished country’s scarce resources to his 1.2 million-member army, making it one of the world’s largest.
“The military power is the centerpiece of the national strength and we cannot think about our country’s prosperity without powerful guns,” the paper said.
The anniversary of the country’s founding is a major holiday in North Korea, along with the birthdays of the leader and his father, late founder Kim Il-sung.
North Koreans streamed to Mansu Hill in Pyongyang to lay flowers and bow before a towering statue of Kim Il-sung, footage from television news agency APTN showed.
Women in colorful traditional hanbok dresses danced at a plaza near the city’s Daedong River.
“The people seem very happy, they seem very respectful and very peaceful,” Hakan Sokmensuer, a US tourist from Florida told APTN.
North Korea yesterday also indicated it was still open to dialogue after Washington froze the assets of firms linked to its arms trade.
Analysts said North Korea has been playing a tactical game with the international community by making a series of conciliatory gestures last month, followed this month by a statement saying it had advanced in enriching uranium.
“[We] will boost the solidarity with the peoples of all the countries in the world advocating independence, consistently holding fast to the idea of independence, peace and friendship,” the North’s premier said in comments carried by KCNA news agency.
North Korea said last week that it was running a program to enrich uranium for weapons, potentially giving it a new path to build nuclear arms as suspected by Washington.
The US moved on Tuesday to freeze the assets of two North Korean entities believed to be involved in its atomic and missile programs.
The US State Department moved against its General Bureau of Atomic Energy, which oversees the nuclear program, and Korea Tangun Trading Corp, believed to support its missile programs.
DAM INCIDENT
North Korea intentionally released a wall of water that caused a deadly flash flood south of the border, a South Korean minister said yesterday.
Sunday’s massive discharge of water into a cross-border river swept away six South Korean campers and stirred anger in the South.
The incident threatens to damage cross-border relations which had lately been improving.
Asked if the discharge was intentional or a mistake, Unification Minister Hyun In-taek told parliament: “I think the North did it intentionally.”
Hyun was the first South Korean official publicly to assert that the release of the water was intentional.
North Korea on Monday blamed a sudden surge in the dam’s water level for the deadly “emergency” release.
“The North itself has said it had deliberately discharged dam water. This means the water discharge was not made accidentally or by mistake,” Hyun told legislators after follow-up questions.
“The South Korean government is still studying for what purpose the North discharged the water,” he said.
A spokesman for his ministry said Hyun was not necessarily saying the North released the water as a deliberate act of aggression.
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