Inter-Korea summit can open new phase of peace, Pyongyang official tells UN

The north-south summit between the two Koreas now under way in Pyongyang can open a new chapter in relations between the countries, a senior official from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) told the General Assembly today, calling for an end to “interference” in his country’s internal affairs.

“Nothing is more urgent and important than the reunification of our nation, which has been living for more than half a century with the sufferings of territorial division imposed by outside forces,” Choe Su Hon, the Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs, told the Assembly’s annual high-level debate.

“The north-south summit now under way in Pyongyang will be of great significance in opening up a new phase for peace, co-prosperity and reunification by taking the inter-Korean relations to a higher stage,” he said, voicing confidence that “all problems can surely be resolved” if the two leaders sit face to face in a positive spirit.

At the same time, he said that to achieve reunification, “the US hostile policy on the DPRK and interference in our nation’s internal affairs should be brought to an end.”

Concerning the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, he said this does not require “our unilateral disarming” but can only be realized “through the removal of the DPRK-US hostile relations and the elimination of all nuclear threats on the Korean peninsula and its surroundings.”

He called for the United States to “move towards the removal of its hostile policy on the DPRK and normalization of bilateral relations” and said Japan must “make a clean slate of its past of aggression and crime and discard its hostility toward the DPRK as they have pledged.”

The country, he said, “will watch closely every move on the part of the United States and Japan at the stage that requires actions.”