North Korea calls for reunification effort

The head North Korea's reunification negotiating committee called on ex-patriot Koreans to put aside their differences and work for reunification of the Korean Peninsula. But Kim Ryong Song, chairman of the North Side Committee for Implementing the June 15 Joint Declaration, also urged Koreans to sweep aside the "Lee Myung-bak group of traitors" who run the South Korean government. Lee, the South Korean president, remains "a stumbling block" for NSCI's negotiations with its counterpart South Korean Committee, the North Korean government-run Korean Central News Agency quoted Kim as saying. Kim made his "appeal to all the Koreans at home and abroad" this week in a series of articles published by the KCNA based on a general meeting of the NSCI in Pyongyang. The NSCI members discussed the start of "a landmark phase for independent reunification this year" based on work already done by the North-South summits of the June 15 Joint Declaration committees, the KCNA said. One member of the committee said all Koreans long for reunification, "but the bellicose forces at home and abroad are driving the situation on the Korean Peninsula to the brink of war," KCNA reported. All Koreans in the North, South and abroad should "drive the U.S. imperialist forces from South Korea and resolutely punish the present South Korean puppet regime," the member said. The reunification summits were started with a declaration on June 15, 2000, in Pyongyang by South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, who died in December 2011. The first summit signaled a thaw in the troubled relations between the two Koreas, separated by the 1953 armistice demarcation line. The armistice ended three years' of armed conflict but the two Koreas technically remain at war. The first meeting in 2000 also signaled the start of semi-regular meetings of families separated by the demarcation line for decades, never having seen one and other. Last month the Pyongyang government's Disarmament and Peace Institute called the Lee government a "disturber of peace in northeast Asia." Lee also remains "obsessed with the pipe dream of achieving unification through absorption." The DPI report blamed the United States for destabilizing inter-Korean relations by embarking on military maneuvers at a time of heightened tension. About 28,500 U.S. troops are stationed in South Korea. North Korea often criticizes U.S.-South Korea military exercises, alleging they are dry runs for an invasion, a claim Seoul and Washington just as often dismiss. Despite urging all Koreans to work toward reunification, the North Korean government recently said its policies toward the Seoul regime won't change because of the death of Kim Jong Il and the rise to power of his youngest son, Kim Jong Un. But analysts have questioned whether Kim Jong Un, because of his youth and lack of military experience, has a full grasp of power in the usually secretive political structure of North Korea. His frequent visits to the military could be a sign of weakness and an effort to foster loyalty to the regime, an analyst said. Kim Jong Un visited eight military units in January alone, South Korea's Yonhap News Agency said in an analysis of North Korean news reports. He also visited an institute for military officials, attended a military orchestra concert and stopped at a construction site managed by the military.