Two e-bulletins received today (issued 26 June 2006). The first one follows:
DPRK’s Stand on Projected RIMPAC-2006 Clarified
Pyongyang, June 23 (KCNA) -. A spokesman of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland declared this in a statement issued on Friday in connection with the U.S.-led large joint military exercises RIMPAC -2006 to be staged in the waters of Pacific from June 25 to July 29.
The statement said:
As a matter of fact, the exercises targeted against the DPRK are more provocative and dangerous than the previous ones in terms of their scale and aggressive nature.
The U.S. fixed June 25, the day the U.S. started the Korean War in the last century, as the date for launching the exercises. This once again clearly indicates their loud-mouthed peaceful settlement of the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula is nothing but a deceptive artifice to start a new war.
The U.S. talks about “dialogue”, “peace” and “stability in Northeast Asia” but, in actuality, gets frantic in its preparations for a nuclear war, whetting the sword for aggression. This behavior is an unpardonable mockery of the public at home and abroad and a blatant act of disturbing peace.
The reality clearly shows who is chiefly to blame for harassing peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and pushing the situation to the brink of a war.
The south Korean authorities decided to participate again in the war exercises with huge forces, availing themselves of the U.S. hostile policy toward the DPRK. This is a blatant perfidy to the June 15 joint declaration adopted between the north and the south of Korea, a dangerous provocation as it will endanger the overall inter-Korean relations and a treacherous act of escalating the confrontation and tension on the Korean Peninsula.
They would be well advised to ponder over the serious consequences to be entailed by their participation in the projected joint military exercises, unconditionally stop all joint military exercises with the U.S. and clarify its stand to settle the fundamental issue of defusing the military tension on the Korean Peninsula.