The June 15 North-South Joint Declaration

Historic north-south summit meeting was held in Pyongyang, the capital of the Democratic People´s Republic of Korea, in June Juche 89 or 2000 for the first time, 55 years after the division of the Korean peninsula into the north and the south, amid the attention of the entire Korean nation and the world. At the meeting between the great leader Kim Jong Il and the then south Korean President Kim Dae Jung the June 15 north-south joint declaration was adopted, whose key is “by our nation itself”.

The June 15 joint declaration is an unfading banner of Korea´s reunification movement as it is a reunification program which will put an end to the more than half a century-long history of Korea´s division and decorate the 21st century with reunification of the country. The first article of the five-pointed June 15 north-south joint declaration said:

“The north and the south agreed to solve the question of the country´s reunification independently by the concerted efforts of the Korean nation responsible for it.”

It is the key of the inter-Korean joint declaration which represents the will of the Korean people to reunify the country without foreign interference. The adoption of the declaration was a historic event of the nation and world which turned the situation of the Korean peninsula from confrontation, division and cold war into reconciliation, reunification and peace and exerted a crucial influence on the international political situation. After the adoption of the declaration, a new chapter of the reunification movement opened in the Korean peninsula, which developed with pooled mind and will, surmounting the ideological and institutional differences under the banner of “by our nation itself”. As a result, exchanges and cooperation were revitalized in the political, economic, cultural and different other fields, which had been unimaginable before.

In the course the entire Korean people in the north and the south and abroad could strengthen the national reconciliation and unity with united strength. It was a clear evidence of the validity and traction of the joint declaration. It is the faith of the entire Korean nation that the reunification, prosperity and future of the nation are in the implementation of the June 15 joint declaration. In recent years extremely serious situation and difficulties are cropping up in the way of the development of the inter-Korean relations and national reunification due to the senseless moves of the south Korean puppets for confrontation with the DPRK. But the entire Korean people will valorously neutralize the obstructions of the enemy to reunification and more powerfully struggle to implement the June 15 joint declaration and eventually achieve the country´s reunification, the cherished desire of the nation.