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(4th LD) N. Korea greets New Year with no explanations about missing year-end nuclear disarmament deadline
By Shim Sun-ah
SEOUL, Jan. 1 (Yonhap) -- North Korea greeted New Year's Day with a vow to strengthen its military and economy but without any mention of its failure to meet a year-end nuclear disarmament deadline set under an international accord.
In a message that marked the New Year, the hard-line communist country also renewed its long-standing demand for an end to the U.S. military presence in South Korea while holding out hope for improved ties with Seoul which will soon have a new president with a tough stance on it.
"We should constantly increase the military strength of our Republic by holding fast to the Party's Songun-based revolutionary line," said the statement issued in the form of a joint editorial by the country's three major newspapers published by the party, military and youth guard militia.
Songun, or the military-first policy, is the North's ruling philosophy that has been in place since leader Kim Jong-il took over power after his father and president, Kim Il-sung, died in 1994.
"Strong defense capabilities are symbolic of the independent dignity of Songun Korea and a basic guarantee for its prosperity," said the statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency. "Our Party is consistent in its revolutionary stand to hold the idea of giving prominence to the military affairs as the basic strategy in building a great, prosperous and powerful nation."
The North's 1.1-million-member military, the world's fifth largest, is the backbone of the communist regime.
The lengthy statement contained no surprises. Prominently missing was any mention of the North's failure to meet a Dec. 31 deadline for it to complete its promised disablement of its core nuclear facilities and give a full accounting of its nuclear programs.
Under an October deal with South Korea, the United States, China, Japan and Russia, North Korea is supposed to have disabled its key nuclear facilities at Yongbyon and disclosed a full list of its nuclear programs by Dec. 31 in return for the equivalent of 1 million tons of fuel oil.
While the delay in the North's nuclear disablement work had been widely expected because of technical problems, its failure to meet the Monday deadline has caused concern among its negotiating partners.
South Korea, the United States and Japan expressed disappointment but said negotiations will continue to disarm the communist state.
"It is our view that that process should move forward. There is an opportunity to do that," Scott Stanzel, deputy White House spokesman, told reporters at Crawford, Texas, where U.S. President George W. Bush was staying.
What prompted North Korea to pass the Monday deadline unmet has not been officially known but diplomatic sources in Seoul and Washington indicated that it was mainly because of differences over whether North Korea has a second nuclear weapons program using enriched uranium.
North Korea detonated a plutonium-based nuclear device in October last year but it has strenuously denied U.S. allegations that it had and may still have a separate weapons program using enriched uranium.
The U.S. allegations triggered the current nuclear crisis in 2002. A six-party forum was set up the next year to try to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear ambitions.
In a series of six-party accords first adopted in 2006 and reinforced in 2007, North Korea agreed to disarm in exchange for economic rewards and better ties with Washington and Tokyo. In an initial denuclearization step, the North closed down its only functioning 5-megawatt nuclear reactor in July.
Some analysts said North Korea may think that it is the U.S., not itselt, who should take necessary steps to ease the nuclear stalemate.
"The North's failure to mention the nuclear issue in the New Year's message appears to reflect its wait-and-see tactics," said Kim Yong-hyun, a North Korean studies professor of Seoul's Dongguk University.
The North's statement also said Seoul-Pyongyang relations should continue to develop on the basis of two inter-Korean summit agreements in 2000 and 2007 that call for stepped-up efforts to promote national reconciliation and cross-border economic projects.
In an apparent show of uneasiness over the emergence of a new conservative government in South Korea, the statement said, "Pro-U.S. sycophancy and treachery of turning the back on the trend of the times towards reunification and hindering the reconciliation and unity of the nation should not be tolerated."
North Korea has yet to report and comment on South Korea's next president, Lee Myung-bak who will take office on Feb. 25. Lee, a CEO-turned conservative opposition leader, vows to take a tougher stance on North Korea while seeking to strengthen Seoul's alliance with Washington.
Lee has publicly declared that he would not pander North Korea with economic aid unless the communist country abandons its nuclear ambitions.
The North's statement also acknowledged chronic food shortages being faced by the communist country despite massive outside aid.
"At present there is no more urgent and important task than solving the problem of food," it said. "The agricultural sector should radically increase grain output by planting high-yielding varieties on a wide scale and introducing advanced farming technology and methods as required by the Party's policy of bringing about a drastic change in agriculture."
The North has been relying on international handouts since 1995 to help feed its 23 million people.
sshim@yna.co.kr
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