Peace dearer than anything else: North Korean official
Iran Press TV
Sun Aug 25, 2013 1:45PM GMT
A senior North Korean military official has voiced his country’s willingness for making peace with South Korea, as the two neighboring countries are set to hold their first family reunions after a three-year hiatus.
“Peace is dearer to us than anything else as our general goal is to build an economic power and improve the standard of people's living,” Choe Ryong-Hae, vice marshal of the Korean People's Army, said on Saturday.
“The Korean people do not war but hope for averting a fratricidal war and reunifying the country... peacefully at any cost,” Choe said.
The Korean official said Pyongyang would make “every possible effort to prevent a new war” on the Korean peninsula and to improve “friendly and cooperative relations” with the rest of the world.
On August 23, North and South Korea agreed to hold a round of family reunions, which allows 100 people from each side to meet their relatives from the other side at the Diamond Mountain resort in southeastern North Korea from September 25 to September 30.
The reunion program, which was suspended after the Pyongyang’s shelling of a South Korean border island in November 2010, come after South Korean President Park Geun-hye said earlier that Seoul would allow divided families to contact each other.
On August 18, North Korea also expressed willingness for the resumption of family reunions on September 19.
Pyongyang also announced that it will seek to restart South Korean tours to the North’s Mount Kumgang resort.
The two Koreas recently made an agreement on the resumption of operations at their jointly-operated industrial park in the Kaesong border area, which was shut down by Pyongyang after the United States and South Korea held military exercises in April.
The Korean Peninsula has been locked in a cycle of military rhetoric over the past few months.
North Korea blocked access to jointly-run Kaesong Industrial Zone and withdrew its 53,000 employees in April amid rising tensions with Seoul.
South Korea insisted that the closure was a unilateral move by the North. However, Pyongyang argued that antagonistic measures and threats by South Korea, particularly a series of joint military exercises with the US, have led to the closure of Kaesong.
South Korea has staged a series of military exercises separately or jointly with the US since December 2012, when Pyongyang launched a long-range rocket which it said put a satellite into orbit.
YH/PR
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