Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

North Korea hosted a central "report session" in Pyongyang on April 8 to commemorate the 10th anniversary of Kim Jong Il's ascendancy to the position of the chairman of the National Defense Commission of the DPRK. During the meeting, Kim Yong Chun, chief of the General Staff of the Korean People's Army (KPA), stressed in his speech that "strengthening the national defense is a task which requires the mutual effort of all party members, all of the nation and all Korean people." The meeting was attended by senior officials of the party, the state and the army.

Kim Jong Il made an inspection visit to Air Force Unit 887 of the Korean People's Army (KPA) on April 10 and the KPA Unit 205 on the following day. On April 12, he watched performances given by family members of the KPA Unit 324 in a cultural competition among the family members of the servicemen.

On April 10, the "April Spring Goodwill Arts Festival" opened at the April 25 Cultural Center as part of the festivities celebrating the late Kim Il Sung's birthday (April 15).

The North Korean Central Broadcasting Station released a report on April 12 that "the UN Security Council meeting, which took place on April 9 to discuss our nuclear issue, closed without reaching any decision or adopting any resolution." The report went on "while the U.S. and another nation had called for an adoption of a document which calls for the rejection of our decision to pull out from the NPT, most member nations opposed the adoption of such a document."

On April 12, a spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry, responding to a question posed by a reporter from Korea Central News Agency, claimed that "while the DPRK and the U.S. need to engage in direct bilateral talks in order to find a peaceful resolution to the nuclear problem, the DPRK will not insist on a specific dialogue format if the U.S. displays a willingness to make a bold shift in its Korea policy."      

On April 12, Democratic National United Front Broadcasting, a malevolent anti-South propaganda media outlet, condemned the U.S.-led coalition forces war in Iraq, saying that "the U.S. invasion of Iraq provides our nation with a painfully-clear lesson that it is useless to yield to and compromise with the brazen-faced imperialists" and "we should not forget the lessons learned from the Iraqi war and oppose the anti-DPRK campaign with a coordinated effort of the entire Korean nation."

Korean Central News Agency made the groundless claim on April 10 that "the South Korean National Assembly's passage of the bill which authorizes the dispatch of non-combat troops to Iraq and the National Assembly's remark that it would, under the pretext of resolving the nuclear issue, urge the South Korean government to thoroughly review the possibility of levying sanctions against North Korea are tantamount to an anti-national crime that would bring about nuclear catastrophe on the Korean people."