Print

Mail

wiki links

N Korean assembly re-elects Kim as nation's top leader

North Korea's parliament re-elected Kim Jong-il as the isolated country's top leader yesterday, and approved his government's decision to "keep and increase its nuclear deterrent force" to counter what it calls a hostile US policy.

As Kim watched from a raised platform, the Supreme People's Assembly -- a rubber-stamp body for government policy -- adopted a statement that also backed the Foreign Ministry's announcement last week that North Korea no longer had "interest or expectations" for future talks on its nuclear program, according to the North's official news agency KCNA.

KCNA also reported that the parliament "decided to take relevant measures." The news agency did not elaborate.

North Korea's envoy to last week's six-nation talks in Beijing on the North's nuclear crisis warned that the reclusive state might test a nuclear device to prove itself a nuclear power, a US official said on condition of anonymity.

Representatives from the US, the two Koreas, Japan, China and Russia had met in Beijing to discuss ways to end the nuclear crisis. After the meeting, China, North Korea's only remaining major ally, released a statement saying all six countries agreed to continue to talk.

But a day after the three-day Beijing meeting ended on Friday, Pyongyang's Foreign Ministry angrily dismissed the need for more talks and vowed to "keep and strengthen its nuclear deterrent force as a just self-defensive means to repel US pre-emptive nuclear attacks," the parliament said.

Meanwhile, North Koreans were jubilant as cars mounted with loudspeakers announced that parliament had re-elected Kim Jong-il as chairman of the National Defense Commission, which oversees the country's 1.1 million armed forces -- the world's fifth largest military. By constitution, Kim's post is the highest in the government hierarchy.

People poured out of their homes and factories "dancing with bunches of flowers in their hands," KCNA said.
This story has been viewed 2478 times.