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North Korea Weekly (March 31-April 6, 2008)

ROK National Intelligence Service

【Inside North Korea】

o On March 31, the North Korean Central Broadcasting Station (KCBS) said, “Scientists at the Veterinary Medicine Institute of the Academy of Agricultural Science are making good progress with a project to further spread technology for diagnosing avian influenza.” The KCBS also reported, “Scientists with the hygienic prevention research group, who are armed with the burning spirit of inquiry, in a short period of time succeeded in developing a technology to produce an essential substance for making a test reagent to diagnose avian influenza. They also successfully established a production process.”

o On April 2, the KCBS said, “In this meaningful year of the 60th anniversary of the founding of the republic [the DPRK], the entire nation is brimming with the crusades of officials and workers who have all rolled up their sleeves as one in the spring project to manage the land with one heart and make the fatherland even more beautiful.” The media outlet specifically reported, “In Pyongyang, thanks to the selfless battle of soldier-constructors, the project to pave roads and line them with good trees such as eucommia, red cedar and gingko has made rapid progress.”

o On April 3, North Korea’s Pyongyang Broadcasting Service (PBS) said, “The royal tombs of King Wanggon and King Gongmin are valuable historic cultural assets of the nation that are occupied by the immortal leadership of the great persons of Mt. Baekdu.” PBS reported, “Gaesong’s workers paved a road between the two royal tombs that meets the requirements of the new era, pushing themselves through the hardships and difficulties that arose, engaging in a powerful battle to tear down the mountainside and blast through rock with the revolutionary military spirit to lay a quality roadbed in half a month, build masonry walls and plant trees along the road.”

【Outside North Korea】

o On April 1, North Korea’s Rodong Sinmun said, “As the attention of the international community is focused on the resumption of the six-party talks, US conservative hardliners look only to the rupture of the talks and the degeneration of the situation.” The newspaper claimed, “Accountability for the delay in the execution of the agreements made at the six-party talks rests with the US, and our [North Korea’s] determination to realize the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula through the six-party talks has not changed.”

【Inter-Korean Issues】

o On March 31, the North’s Pyongyang Broadcasting Service (PBS) alleged, “Recently South Korea’s warmongers are vociferous about ensuring independent war fighting capabilities and pouring a huge amount of money to realize the Defense Reform Plan 2020, which is focused on stepping up independent information collection, command and control, and precision striking capabilities.” The PBS lashed out, “The South Korean military authority, which purchased a tremendous amount of munitions worth 3.7 billion USD from the US last year, is as eager as to have bloodshot eyes in bringing in state-of-the-art war-fighting equipment, having assigned a staggering 621 trillion won for the defense reform period and even created an agency called the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA), which is in charge of the purchase and improvement of military equipment.”

o On April 1, North Korea’s Rodong Sinmun denounced South Korean President Lee Myung-bak’s so-called “Denuclearization, Opening and 3,000” policy platform [which involves South Korea helping North Korea reach a per-capita income of 3,000 USD in exchange for the North abandoning its nuclear ambitions] as an “anti-unification declaration that sells the nation to foreign forces and drives inter-Korean relations to catastrophe,” arguing, “With the banner of ‘four great principles in pursuing North Korean policy’ hung out, the South is moving in the direction of closing and locking the doors of inter-Korean relations, which have developed for the better since the June 15 [Declaration].” The newspaper contended, “The denuclearization of the Korean peninsula is not a North-South Korean issue, but a DPRK-US one. Arguing that the abandonment of the nuclear program should come first is nothing more than a declaration of confrontation or war that denies both inter-Korean relations and peace, as well as an intentional, political provocation to increase hostility and distrust and drive inter-Korean relations to confrontation.”

o On April 2, the North’s PBS said, “Ensuring stable peace and peacefully achieving the unification of the fatherland has consistently been our party’s objective,” and added, “Peace is a basic prerequisite for the reunification of the fatherland and the co-prosperity of the nation.” The PBS called for the launch of a battle to safeguard peace, saying, “Wherever we march with the flag of safeguarding peace hoisted high is the road to glorification of the June 15 reunification era and to unification and prosperity.”

o On April 3, the North Korean Central Broadcasting Station (KCBS) claimed, “The South Korean military warmongers attempted a serious military provocation on the West Sea [Yellow Sea] on April 3,” adding, “It sent three battleships deep into our [North Korean] territorial waters southeast of Ssanggyo-ri, Gangryeong-gun, South Hwanghae Province.” KCBS alleged, “The South Korean military’s unscrupulous thrusting of its battleships into our [North Korean] territorial waters is an act akin to robbery aimed to hold fast to the Northern Limit Line (NLL), [which was drawn] illegally and lawlessly.”