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Pyongyang offers Seoul ‘to halt all hostile military activities`

Pyongyang offers Seoul ‘to halt all hostile military activities`

Posted July. 01, 2014 05:46,   

한국어

In a "special suggestion" in the name of its National Defense Commission on Monday, North Korea proposed that “(The two Koreas) halt all hostile military activities from 12:00 a.m. Friday.” The North also demanded the cancellation of the Ulchi Freedom Guardian, the South Korea-U.S. joint military exercise that takes place in August every year.

Through its Korean Central News Agency on Monday afternoon, the North’s National Defense Commission urged the South to “make policy decision that calls for complete halt of all different slanders and psychological propaganda plots against the other side from 12:00 a.m. on Friday.” Pyongyang then pressured Seoul to “immediately cancel the Ulchi Freedom Guardian Drill to prepare in advance mood for various exchanges and contacts that have been widely made between the North and the South, including the Incheon Asian Games (scheduled this year).”

Suggesting July 4 as watershed, the North stressed the July 4 Joint Statement issued in 1972, which the late former President Park Chung-hee, the father of incumbent President Park Geun-hye, and the late North Korean founder Kim Il Sung, the grandfather of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, and mentioned the grand principles of the statement, namely "self-reliance, peace, and grand unity."

A source in the South Korean government said, “The North’s offer is similar in content to its campaign of offensives with demand for peace through the National Defense Commission’s important offer in January this year, and an open letter to the South at the special order of Kim Jong Un,” adding, “Since the latest offer contains no new information, the South can no longer afford to consider it a ‘faithful offer,` unless Pyongyang actually returns to inter-Korean dialogue.”