Forty-six years have passed since the publication of the July 4 North-South Joint Statement.
The north and south of Korea reached an agreement on the three principles of Korea’s reunification—independence, peaceful reunification and great national unity—put forward by President Kim Il Sung and made it public at home and abroad. It was an event of historic significance in realizing the cause of national reunification.
Korea’s reunification is not a question between different nations but an issue that must be solved on all accounts by the Korean people of the same descent. Interference by foreign forces will only give rise to greater complexities for the issue. Koreans in the north, south and abroad must never tolerate the intervention and arbitrary actions by foreign forces in their attempt to divide the Korean nation for ever and lord it over the Korean peninsula and the region. They must solve the national reunification issue on the principle of national self-determination and in conformity with the nation’s demand for independence.
The three principles of national reunification serve as a great programme for reunifying Korea peacefully through dialogue and negotiations without recourse to force of arms.
The differences in ideology and social system between the north and the south cannot be the cause for conflict among fellow countrymen, nor be removed by force. The north and the south can easily overcome the differences through dialogue and negotiations and achieve unity and reunification. Fratricidal war will only bring catastrophic damage to the Korean nation, and it will allow outside forces to fish in troubled waters. The Korean people, who have suffered untold pains and misfortunes caused by national division for more than seven decades, do not want fratricide, but wish for peaceful reunification.
All the Koreans should be rallied to achieve national reunification.
Great national unity is a decisive guarantee for achieving the independent and peaceful reunification of Korea. The strength of the nation lies in its unity, and firm unity of all fellow countrymen is the only way to save the destiny of the country and the nation from crisis and exalt the dignity and honour as a reunified Korea, a reunified nation.
The unity of all the fellow countrymen makes it possible to build up the motive force for national reunification, which can frustrate the anti-reunification machinations of separatist forces within and without and carry out the cause of national reunification.
The above-mentioned three principles reflected in the July 4 Joint Statement evoked unanimous sympathy from at home and abroad for its validity as a great programme and a fundamental cornerstone for reunification common to the Korean nation.
In 2000, the north and the south adopted the June 15 North-South Joint Declaration with the idea of By Our Nation Itself as the core by embodying the three principles of national reunification and, in 2007, the October 4 Declaration as its action programme.
In April this year, the Panmunjom Declaration for Peace, Prosperity and Reunification of the Korean Peninsula was adopted, bringing about a fresh turn in improving inter-Korean relations and accomplishing the cause of national reunification.
All the Korean people will surely build a prosperous, reunified country on this land by holding fast to the three principles of independence, peaceful reunification and great national unity.
