Pyongyang slams South Korean president's reunification speech
North Korea blasted South Korean President Park Geun-hye's proposal on laying the groundwork for reunification through economic exchanges and humanitarian aid as the "daydream of a psychopath".
North Korea yesterday blasted South Korean President Park Geun-hye's proposal on laying the groundwork for reunification through economic exchanges and humanitarian aid as the "daydream of a psychopath".
The attack from the North's powerful National Defence Commission (NDC) was the first official reaction from Pyongyang to a proposal Park made in a speech last month in Dresden in the former East Germany.
She urged the North to expand reunions of families and increase cross-border economic and cultural exchanges, starting with the South bolstering humanitarian aid.
"Germany's unity is for us an example and model for a peaceful reunification," she had said.
An NDC spokesman noted that German reunification came about with the West absorbing the East and accused Park of begging foreign countries to help a reunification in which South Korea absorbed the North.
"This is merely a daydream of psychopath," he said, denouncing Park's proposal, billed as the "Dresden Declaration" by Seoul, as "nonsense" full of "hypocrisy and deception".
"The fact that in that particular place, Park Geun-hye lashed her tongue about reunification gave away her sinister mind."
Park also said in Dresden that the South would help funnel international funding to the North's economic development should Pyongyang give up its nuclear-weapons programmes.
But the NDC spokesman said: "They should bear in mind that the tongue-lashing of Park Geun-hye is the first root cause of deteriorating the North-South relations and beclouding the prospect of the nation.
"It is the unanimous view of the public that the North-South relations will be smoother than now only if Park keeps her disgusting mouth closed," he said.
Despite its verbal attacks, professor Yang Moo-jin of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul said Pyongyang was likely to ease up and return to dialogue late this month.
Diplomatic efforts to resuscitate long-stalled six-party talks on disarming North Korea also appear to have been rekindled.
The US State Department said on Friday that envoy Glyn Davies would meet with his Chinese counterpart Wu Dawei in New York and Washington this week for discussions on the denuclearisation of North Korea.
