NK: Nukes Not Talks Credited for Deal with South
Local Editor
North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un said nuclear weapons -- not negotiating skills -- secured this week's "landmark" agreement with South Korea, as he dismissed a number of officials from a top military decision-making body.
Chairing a meeting of the powerful Central Military Commission [CMC], Kim credited the North with striking the deal that ended a tense military standoff with the South, Pyongyang's official KCNA news agency said Friday.
The agreement, reached after marathon day-night talks in the border truce village of Panmunjom, pulled both sides back from the brink of an armed conflict and committed them to starting an official dialogue.
But Kim made it clear that sitting down to talks would not entail North Korea discussing the end of its nuclear weapons program, which the young leader said was key to maintaining peace in the first place.
The Panmunjom agreement "was by no means something achieved on the negotiating table but thanks to the tremendous military muscle with the nuclear deterrent for self-defence", Kim reportedly told the meeting.
The CMC, which is the ruling party's top military policy-making body, handled the recent crisis, and the KCNA report suggested Kim may have ordered a mini purge afterwards.
The meeting "dismissed some members of the Central Military Commission and appointed new ones and dealt with an organizational matter," it said, without elaborating on the reason for the dismissals.
Seoul blamed Pyongyang and responded by switching on banks of giant speakers, which had lain silent for more than a decade, and blasting propaganda messages into North Korea.
The North denied any involvement and threatened to attack the propaganda units as cross-border military tensions soared.
The agreement reached in Panmunjom saw the North express regret -- but not admit responsibility -- for the maiming of the two soldiers, while the South ended the high-decibel broadcasts.
The talks were initiated by North Korea -- a fact that some analysts took as a sign that Pyongyang had blinked first in an escalating showdown that included a rare artillery exchange across the land border.
In his speech to the CMC, Kim acknowledged and embraced the fact Pyongyang had sought the negotiations as evidence of its moral and strategic strength.
North Korea's initiative, "put under control the situation which inched close to an armed conflict, thereby clearing the dark clouds of war," he said.
He underscored the need to channel "top priority efforts" into strengthening North Korea's military capability further.
While playing up Pyongyang's role, Kim stressed that the agreement was a "crucial landmark occasion" that offered both Koreas a chance to move forward to better ties.
Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team
Comments
person JB
Trash man...
Kim is a piece of trash. The family statues will fall just like Saddam's statue.
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