“South Korea has made a unilateral case for unification and increased mistrust and conflict between us”, Kim said during a 30-minute address, broadcast on North Korean television.
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Kim, who enters his fifth year in power this year, could also seek to placate the military by reinstating demoted officials, according to a report by the state-run Korea Institute for Defense Analyses in Seoul.
Clifford Hart, then US special envoy for six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear program, made the request during a phone call with North Korea’s deputy United Nations ambassador Han Song-ryol, days after the two sides reached a food aid-for-denuclearization steps agreement.
While North Korea’s road conditions are poor, the lack of detail helped feed speculation in South Korean media that the death was suspicious.
Kim said in last year’s speech he would be open to a summit with Seoul but tension surged in August after a landmine blast on their border wounded two South Korean soldiers. “We are willing to have talks in an open-minded manner with anyone who wants peace and unification”.
“At a time when inter-Korean relations remain deadlocked, North Korea passed the responsibility for the strained ties to the South”, said Kim Yong-hyun, a professor of North Korean studies at Dongguk University in Seoul. The North’s leader also rebuked Seoul for the South’s unification policy, which Pyongyang has called Seoul’s attempt to absorb the North.
Spokesman Kim Sung-soo of the main opposition Deobooleoh Democratic Party also positively assessed the North’s expressed will for dialogue. “It may hint at the North waiting for Seoul to make the first move”.
In a response to Kim’s speech, South Korea’s foreign ministry reiterated its position that it was open to talks with the North, the Yonhap News Agency reported.
The first in 36 years, the communist party congress will be held between October and May and could result in the unveiling of new policy guidelines and an eventual restructuring of the regime’s leadership.
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Kim pledged to develop North Korea’s moribund economy and raise living standards, although North Korean leaders have been saying that for decades.
