Internal Affairs

o Chairman Kim Jong-il, along with leaders from the party and the military, demonstrated North Korea's resolve to strengthen friendship with Russia by presenting themselves on April 20 at the "April Spring Goodwill Arts Festival" along with a performance of a Russian troupe participating in the fete.

o North Korea demonstrated its military preparedness against the United States by staging a Central Report session and a performance by the Art Propaganda Squad at last year's level on the occasion of its armed forces day, April 25. Noticeable during the events, however, was its emphasis on the June 15, 2000, South-North Joint Declaration and on the need for mutual assistance between fellow Koreans on the peninsula.

o With the 55th anniversary of its founding five months away, North Korea announced a set of 192 "party central committee slogans" April 21. Of the slogans, 51 covered the economic area like a priority development of the defense industry and 50 of them were political-ideological slogans. Following the announcement, each organization tried to perform as dictated by the corresponding slogans. For example, high-level cabinet and military figures made vows to follow through with the mottoes.

o Unlike in previous years, North Korea put more emphasis on repairs of roads, rivers and buildings than on forestation, when it propagandized the outcome of spring-time "total mobilization project for national land management". A propaganda report said that about 700 kilometers of roads were recently constructed or repaired in ten days under the nationwide project.

Relations with South Korea

o While the scheduled three-way talks on the nuclear issue were in progress in Beijing, North Korea sent a telephone message to Seoul April 19, proposing the 10th inter-Korean ministerial meeting on April 27-29 in Pyongyang. Meanwhile, it called off a joint "May Day" inter-Korean event, slated for April 30-May 2 in Pyongyang, and asked the South to temporarily suspend the Mt. Geumgang tourism project, citing the rapidly spreading Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).

o North Korea tried to incite anti-American and anti-war struggles and call for mutual assistance between fellow Koreans on the peninsula by highlighting what it saw as a tense situation and war threat caused by the United States. It made the move on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the announcement of the "Five Principles for Great National Unity" April 18, the 43rd anniversary of the outbreak of the April 19 Student Uprising (in South Korea) and the 55th anniversary of the so-called "joint conference" between South and North Korea April 21 (1948).

External Affairs

o In a foreign ministry spokesman's statement April 25, North Korea maintained that it would watch the U.S. attitude on its proposal, saying it "offered new and bold ways to clear up the concerns of both North Korea and the United States." The statement came right after the three-way talks involving North Korea, the United States and China April 23-25 in Beijing.

- Ahead of the statement, the foreign ministry spokesman described April 18 the three-way talks virtually as a one-on-one North Korea-U.S. meeting, where it hinted at its intentions to reprocess spent fuel rods, and urged the United States anew to switch its North Korea policy and expressed its willingness to resolve the nuclear issue through dialogue.

- In advance of the tripartite meeting on the North Korean nuclear issue, Cho Myong-rok, the first vice chairman of North Korea's National Defense Commission, visited Beijing April 21-23 and met with president Hu Jintao and other senior Chinese officials and pledged to strengthen friendly relations between North Korea and China.

o In an address delivered at the 59th meeting of the U.N. human rights commission April 10, North Korea raised the issue of "comfort women," who were forced to serve by the Japanese Empire, and demanded Japan to apologize for the abuses and fulfill its promises to address them as expressed in the Pyongyang Declaration.

o During the U.N. human rights commission meeting, a EU-sponsored resolution, calling on Pyongyang to improve its human rights situation, was passed with 28 nations in favor, 10 against and 14 abstentions.

o The European Union gave some 60,000 tons of fertilizer to North Korea, according to a Korean Central News Agency report on April 21.