As discussed previously, South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak offered an invitation to Kim Jong-Il to attend the Nuclear Security Summit, a meeting of world leaders with the ambitious goal of global denuclearization set to kick off next March in Seoul. The North responded indirectly through its KCNA news, and it remains to be seen if they will respond personally. From DailyNK:
A spokesperson for North Korea’s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland (NKCPRF), in an interview with the Chosun Central News Agency (KCNA) yesterday, chastised President Lee as a “traitor” and proclaimed, “Asserting denuclearization as a precondition for dialogue is a rash attempt to fulfill its ambition to invade the North along with the United States, having disarmed us.”
“From the government’s perspective, it is rather saddening that they would brand President Lee a ‘traitor’,” the official commented. However, he added, “From the perspective of the government, there seems to be no value in dealing with North Korean slander delivered through the NKCPRF.”
The North also criticized President Lee’s proposal for another reason, namely that “the South talks about holding nuclear summits and such like, having made South Chosun the world’s biggest outpost of nuclear war and arsenal of nuclear weapons.”
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Currently, the South Korean government is awaiting a formal response from North Korea on the Berlin proposal, which calls on it to cast aside its nuclear weapons in order to gain entry to the Nuclear Security Summit.
The Ministry official concluded, “Though we are awaiting a response from the North, we, as of yet, see no great difference. We can be sure that there have been no actual changes that move towards nuclear disarmament.”
“Rather saddening that they would brand President Lee a ‘traitor’”? KCNA calls him that a dozen times a day!
Source: DailyNK
