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(LEAD) N. Korea vows to fight U.S. with 'willpower'
By Kim Hyun
SEOUL, June 9 (Yonhap) -- North Korea urged its people Tuesday to be armed with willpower against the United States and warned not to depend on allied nations, as the country faces new international sanctions for its recent nuclear test.
The full-page editorial by the Rodong Sinmun, the North's main newspaper published by the Workers Party of Korea, apparently pointed to China, which has rebuked the May 25 nuclear explosion and is now working on a punitive resolution with the U.N. Security Council.
"We will win when we fight the (U.S.) imperialists to the end, and there will be only shame and disgrace if we surrender," the paper said. "The confrontation with the imperialists is a war of willpower."
The U.N. council is expected to produce the resolution within days, with China now reviewing a final draft. The envisioned resolution, first drafted by the U.S. and Japan and with South Korea's support, calls for financial sanctions on Pyongyang, an arms trade embargo and the inspection of North Korea's air and sea shipments of suspicious cargo, sharper in intensity than an earlier resolution adopted after the North's first nuclear test in 2006.
South Korea's chief nuclear negotiator, Wi Sung-lac, flew to Beijing earlier Thursday to discuss the sanctions with his Chinese counterpart, Wu Dawei.
The Rodong Sinmun revealed North Korea's growing disillusionment with U.S. President Barack Obama, who warned of strong sanctions for Pyongyang's nuclear test and said he is "not intending to continue a policy of rewarding provocation."
"The current U.S. administration is making sweet sounds in people's ears, clamoring for change and multilateral cooperative diplomacy, but its real intention is no different from its predecessor" George W. Bush, the paper said.
Such words of engagement are only "hypocrisy" to instill an illusion into and disarm the North Koreans, it said.
In an apparent note on the decades of diplomatic isolation and financial and trade sanctions North Korea has faced, the paper blamed the U.S. policy toward it as "a fear strategy" and a "strangle-and-kill strategy."
"With the fear strategy, the imperialists are trying to dispirit and frighten our people and make us back off from our anti-imperialist, self-reliance principle," it said.
The U.S. also intends to "strangle, pressure and slowly destroy" the North with decades of political and economic sanctions and military threats, it said.
North Korea does not expect help even from allied nations, the paper said.
"In the world today, there's no country that can stand up for us in our anti-imperialism struggle and no country would help as if it's their own," it said.
"In any case, we cannot depend on others with hopes of international friendship or solidarity," it added.
Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies, said the editorial is internal propaganda, with sanctions certain to make the lives of North Koreans harder.
North Korea has consistently accused the U.S. of trying to invade it, saying routine military exercises with South Korea are a rehearsal for war. The two Koreas remain technically at war, as the 1950-53 Korean War ended in an armistice and was never replaced by a peace treaty.
"The North is saying its relations with the U.S. have no other way but confrontation for a long time, and it's telling its people to be prepared, armed with strong will to resist," Yang said.
hkim@yna.co.kr
(END)
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