North Korea vows no softening under its new leader

In this undated photo released by the Korean Cen­tral News Agency and dis­trib­uted in Tokyo by the Korea News Ser­vice on Fri­day, a com­mem­o­ra­tive postage stamp fea­tur­ing late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il is shown. The words on the top read “The great leader com­rade Kim Jong Il will live for­ever.” (Asso­ci­ated Press | Korean News Service)

Asso­ci­ated Press

PYONGYANG, North Korea — North Korea warned the world Fri­day there would be no soft­en­ing of its posi­tion toward South Korea’s gov­ern­ment after Kim Jong Il’s death as Pyongyang strength­ened his son and heir’s author­ity with a new title: Great Leader.

North Korea’s pow­er­ful National Defense Com­mis­sion said the coun­try would never deal with South Korean Pres­i­dent Lee Myung-bak, a con­ser­v­a­tive who stopped a no-strings-attached aid pol­icy toward the North in 2008.

The stern mes­sage also said North Korea was unit­ing around Kim Jong Un, refer­ring to him for the first time with the title Great Leader — pre­vi­ously used for his father — in a clear mes­sage of con­ti­nu­ity. It was the lat­est incre­men­tal step in a bur­geon­ing per­son­al­ity cult around the son fol­low­ing the Dec. 17 death of Kim Jong Il.

The younger Kim on Thurs­day was pro­nounced Supreme Leader of the rul­ing party, mil­i­tary and peo­ple at a mas­sive pub­lic gath­er­ing on the final day of offi­cial mourn­ing for his father.

The top lev­els of gov­ern­ment appear to have ral­lied around Kim Jong Un, who is in his late 20s, in the wake of his father’s death. Still, given his inex­pe­ri­ence and age, there are ques­tions out­side North Korea about his lead­er­ship of a nation engaged in del­i­cate nego­ti­a­tions over its nuclear pro­gram and grap­pling with decades of eco­nomic hard­ship and chronic food shortages.

“We declare solemnly and con­fi­dently that the fool­ish politi­cians around the world, includ­ing the pup­pet group in South Korea, should not expect any change from us,” the National Defense Com­mis­sion said. “We will never deal with the trai­tor group of Lee Myung-bak.”

In a com­bat­ive voice, a female news anchor for state TV read the National Defense Com­mis­sion state­ment, say­ing the “evil mis­deeds” of the Lee admin­is­tra­tion reached a peak when it pre­vented South Kore­ans from vis­it­ing North Korea to pay respects to Kim Jong Il, except for two del­e­ga­tions led by a for­mer first lady and a busi­ness leader, both of whose hus­bands had ties to North Korea.

North Korea had said for­eign offi­cial del­e­ga­tions would not be allowed at the funeral but that it would wel­come any South Kore­ans who wanted to travel to pay respects to Kim.

“Even though we lost Kim Jong Il, we have the dear respected Kim Jong Un,” Kang Chol Bok, a 28-year-old offi­cer of the Korean People’s Inter­nal Secu­rity Forces, told The Asso­ci­ated Press. “We will turn our pro­found sor­row into strength and courage.”

In a newly released postage stamp, Kim Jong Un was fea­tured along­side Kim Jong Il against the back­drop of sacred Mount Paektu, the North’s offi­cial Korean Cen­tral News Agency said. It appeared to be the first time that the son has been fea­tured on a postage stamp. North Korea has often depicted Kim Jong Il and his father, North Korean founder Kim Il Sung, together in offi­cial artwork.

The North’s state­ment is a warn­ing for Seoul not to take the new lead­er­ship lightly, said Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korea expert at Seoul’s Dong­guk University.

“It is also rais­ing the stakes in case the South wants bet­ter rela­tions so Pyongyang can extract greater con­ces­sions” dur­ing any later talks, Koh said. He added that it’s “too early to say the North is dash­ing hopes for reforms.”

While blast­ing the South’s leader, the North also offered a bit of hope for improved ties with the South, say­ing it “will con­tinue to push hard toward the path of improved relations.”

But it added that any bet­ter ties won’t be “based on the deceit­ful ploys South Korea is employ­ing by mix­ing ‘tough­ness’ and ‘flex­i­bil­ity.’” Seoul has sig­naled a change in its approach toward Pyongyang in recent months, say­ing it will be more flex­i­ble in deal­ing with the North.

South Korea’s Uni­fi­ca­tion Min­istry will main­tain its North Korea pol­icy and not react to every state­ment out of Pyongyang, accord­ing to a min­istry offi­cial who declined to be iden­ti­fied cit­ing the sen­si­tiv­ity of the rela­tions between the countries.

U.S. Defense Sec­re­tary Leon Panetta spoke by phone with his South Korean coun­ter­part and they agreed to keep close ties in the com­ing months, Pen­ta­gon press sec­re­tary George Lit­tle said.

Panetta and South Korean Min­is­ter of Defense Kim Kwan-jin dis­cussed the sit­u­a­tion on the Korean penin­sula in the 20-minute call, Lit­tle said in a state­ment sent out late Thursday.

“The sec­re­tary and the min­is­ter shared the view that peace and sta­bil­ity on the Korean Penin­sula is our over­ar­ch­ing pri­or­ity and agreed to main­tain close coop­er­a­tion and coor­di­na­tion in the weeks and months ahead,” Lit­tle said.

On Thurs­day, Kim Jong Un stood with his head bowed at the Grand People’s Study House, over­look­ing Kim Il Sung Square, as mourn­ers gath­ered below. Top offi­cials flank­ing him included Kim Jong Il’s younger sis­ter, Kim Kyong Hui, and her hus­band, Jang Song Thaek, who are expected to be men­tors of their young nephew.

“The father’s plan is being imple­mented,” Ralph Cossa, pres­i­dent of Pacific Forum CSIS, a Hawaii-based think tank, said of the power trans­fer. “All of these guys have a vested inter­est in the sys­tem and a vested inter­est in demon­strat­ing sta­bil­ity. The last thing they want to do is cre­ate havoc.”

Titles are impor­tant in North Korea and part of the myth-building sur­round­ing the Kim fam­ily legacy.

Kim Il Sung, the country’s first and only pres­i­dent, retains the title Eter­nal Pres­i­dent even after his death.

Kim Jong Il held three main posi­tions: chair­man of the National Defense Com­mis­sion, gen­eral sec­re­tary of the Work­ers’ Party and supreme com­man­der of the Korean People’s Army. Accord­ing to the con­sti­tu­tion, his posi­tion as chair­man of the National Defense Com­mis­sion made him Supreme Leader of North Korea.

Kim Jong Un was made a four-star gen­eral last year and appointed a vice chair­man of the Cen­tral Mil­i­tary Com­mis­sion of the Work­ers’ Party. Since his father’s death, North Korean offi­cials and state media have given him a series of new titles: Great Suc­ces­sor, Supreme Leader and now Great Leader.

Posted by AP News on Dec 30 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.