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`NK founder scoffed at S. Korea`s plan to become stronger`

`NK founder scoffed at S. Korea`s plan to become stronger`

Posted November. 04, 2011 06:54,   

한국어

North Korea`s founder Kim Il Sung in the early 1970s scoffed at South Korean President Park Chung-hee`s plan to make the South stronger than the North as a "pipe dream," according to a book by the Woodrow Wilson Center of the U.S.

South Korea`s national power began to surpass that of the North in 1976, and the gap has widened so much since then that comparison between the two Koreas is meaningless.

According to a Romanian government memorandum of conversation in the publication "The Rise and Fall of Detente on the Korean Peninsula, 1970-1974," Kim criticized Park`s reunification policy at a meeting with Romanian leader Nicolae Ceausescu in Pyongyang in June 1971.

"Park Chung-hee says reunification will be possible only when South Korea is more powerful than North Korea economically and militarily," Kim said. "I think he`s daydreaming."

"I don`t know what Park Chung-hee is thinking. Does he think we`ll slumber and never make progress over that time?" said the North Korean leader, adding, "That`s why we`re not afraid of Park Chung-hee`s slogan of achieving national reunification by defeating communism."

Kim told the Romanian leader that it was "impossible" for communism to collapse, saying Park himself admitted that he could not defeat communism for the time being.

In 1973, the North Korean leader also showed his distrust of and discontent with China in a meeting with Bulgarian President Todor Zhivkov. During the Cultural Revolution, Kim said, China used large loudspeakers along the border for large-scale propaganda campaigns targeting the North.

"After visiting the border area, my son told me, `Father, I couldn`t sleep at all at night,`" Kim said.



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