InternalAffairs
Internal Affairs
o Chairman Kim Jong-il visited military unit 1549, accompanied by generals Li Myeong-su and Hyeon Cheol-hae and Li Yong-cheol, the first vice director of the party central committee, according to the Central Broadcasting Station report February 14.
- Kim has visited military units eight times so far this year and whenever he did, he invariably expressed interest in strengthening combat readiness and improving the service environment for soldiers.
o On the occasion of the 62nd birthday of chairman Kim Jong-il, which falls on February 16, North Korea has held a total of 55 events, including celebratory report sessions, film screening, and displays of the Kim Jong-il flower. The events were efforts to highlight Kim's greatness and achievements and encourage allegiance to him, while intensifying a celebratory atmosphere in the country.
o On the occasion of the 30th anniversary on February 19 of the declaration of Juche (self-reliance) ideology, North Korea held a central report session at the April 25 House of Culture. Choe Tae-bok made the report in the meeting presided by Jeong Ha-cheol.
- Calls to rally around chairman Kim Jong-il were made in the session to overcome difficulties North Korea has been experiencing due to the nuclear issue.
o North Korea has been taking measures to train young talent into professionals in the sophisticated science and technology sector in its efforts to build an "economic power."
- Since the inception of the Kim Jong-il era in 1998, North Korea has been revamping its system for the education of young talent by implementing various preferential policies for scientists, while highlighting the importance of the science and technology sector.
o North Korea held a rally of agricultural workers of Samjiyeon County on February 12 to carry out the party's potato farming revolution policy.
- North Korea held up Samjiyeon County as a model for the best area for potato farming and for an increased production of the crop.
Relations with South Korea
o Through the spokesman of its Korean National Peace Committee, North Korea claimed that the U.S. nuclear war provocative plans had entered a full-fledged implementation state. It made the allegation in connection with the South Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command's "New Operations Plan-5026," according to its broadcast services on February 14.
- North Korea also incited South Koreans to engage in Anti-American struggles as well as campaigns for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Korea, saying that only its military-first politics is capable of coping with the U.S. policy of strength and its strong deterrent posture has enabled the maintenance of peace on the Korean peninsula.
o In reaction to the South Korean National Assembly's passage February 13 of a bill on the additional dispatch of troops to Iraq, North Korea, describing the step as "a treasonable, rash act to be cursed endlessly," urged South Korea to scrap the decision, according to a Pyongyang broadcast service February 15 and 18.
External Affairs
o North Korea repeatedly denounced the United States; saying that "Operations Plan-5026" was a dangerous, war-provocative U.S. scheme aimed at inflicting a preemptive nuclear strike.
With the six-way talks only days away, North Korea emphasized the urgency and justification for maintaining nuclear deterrence capabilities, arguing that its nuclear weapons development was an unavoidable option to counter U.S. military pressures.
o North Korea stepped up its denunciation of Japan in the wake of Japanese Diet's passage (by the lower house on January 29 and by the upper house on February 9) of an amendment to the foreign exchange law and raised issues of the past including compensation for Japan's wartime practice of "comfort women" and forced labor on Koreans.
o A North Korean "government delegation," headed by Yang Hyeong-seop, presidium vice chairman of the Supreme People's Assembly, toured the four African countries of Uganda, Nigeria, Guinea and Senegal Janury 23-February 7 for talks on bilateral cooperation and friendly relations.
