North Korea’s new constitution proclaims its status as a nuclear-armed nation, complicating international efforts to persuade Pyongyang to abandon atomic weapons, analysts said yesterday.
An official Web site seen late on Wednesday released the text of the constitution following its revision during a parliamentary session on April 13.
“National Defense Commission Chairman Kim Jong-il turned our fatherland into an invincible state of political ideology, a nuclear-armed state and an indomitable military power, paving the ground for the construction of a strong and prosperous nation,” part of the preamble says.
The text was carried by the Naenara (My Nation) Web site.
The previous constitution, last revised on April 9, 2010, did not carry the term “nuclear-armed state.”
Following former North Korean leader Kim Jong-il’s death in December last year, the country revised the charter to consecrate achievements of the late leader, who was succeeded by his son, Kim Jong-un.
The North has been developing nuclear weapons for decades. Its official position has been that it needs them for self defense against a US nuclear threat, but that it is willing in principle to scrap the atomic weaponry.
Under a September 2005 deal reached during six-nation negotiations, Pyongyang agreed to dismantle its nuclear programs in return for economic and diplomatic benefits and security guarantees.
However, six-party talks on implementing the deal have been stalled since December 2008. The North has staged two nuclear tests, in 2006 and 2009.
“This makes it clear that the North has little intention of giving up nuclear programs under any circumstances,” Cheon Sung-whun of the South Korea’s Institute for National Unification said. “If there is a demand at the negotiation table to give up nuclear weapons, the North Koreans would say it would be a breach of the constitution.”
North Korea has long been in confrontation with the US and its allies over its nuclear and missile programs.
Its April 13 long-range rocket launch, purportedly a peaceful mission to put a satellite into orbit, further dimmed prospects for a diplomatic settlement.
The constitution “is certainly bad news for participants in the six-party talks,” professor Kim Keun-sik at Kyungnam University in Changwon said. “It will make it harder to persuade the North to give up nuclear weapons through diplomacy.”
However, Kim Keun-sik cautioned against reading too much into what was intended as part of a eulogy for Kim Jong-il.
“The North has been touting its nuclear status as one of the key achievements accredited to the late leader and the new constitution factors this in,” he said. “This can hardly be interpreted as a message that it will stick to its nuclear weapons no matter what.”
Kim also said North Korea’s constitution can easily be amended once its ruler decides to do so, noting it was revised twice in as many years.
The six-party talks that began in 2003 are chaired by China and also include the two Koreas, the US, Russia and Japan.
Far from the violence ravaging Haiti, a market on the border with the Dominican Republic has maintained a welcome degree of normal everyday life. At the Dajabon border gate, a wave of Haitians press forward, eager to shop at the twice-weekly market about 200km from Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. They are drawn by the market’s offerings — food, clothing, toys and even used appliances — items not always readily available in Haiti. However, with gang violence bad and growing ever worse in Haiti, the Dominican government has reinforced the usual military presence at the border and placed soldiers on alert. While the market continues to
An image of a dancer balancing on the words “China Before Communism” looms over Parisian commuters catching the morning metro, signaling the annual return of Shen Yun, a controversial spectacle of traditional Chinese dance mixed with vehement criticism of Beijing and conservative rhetoric. The Shen Yun Performing Arts company has slipped the beliefs of a spiritual movement called Falun Gong in between its technicolored visuals and leaping dancers since 2006, with advertising for the show so ubiquitous that it has become an Internet meme. Founded in 1992, Falun Gong claims nearly 100 million followers and has been subject to “persistent persecution” in
ONLINE VITRIOL: While Mo Yan faces a lawsuit, bottled water company Nongfu Spring and Tsinghua University are being attacked amid a rise in nationalist fervor At first glance, a Nobel prize winning author, a bottle of green tea and Beijing’s Tsinghua University have little in common, but in recent weeks they have been dubbed by China’s nationalist netizens as the “three new evils” in the fight to defend the country’s valor in cyberspace. Last month, a patriotic blogger called Wu Wanzheng filed a lawsuit against China’s only Nobel prize-winning author, Mo Yan (莫言), accusing him of discrediting the Communist army and glorifying Japanese soldiers in his fictional works set during the Japanese invasion of China. Wu, who posts online under the pseudonym “Truth-Telling Mao Xinghuo,” is seeking
‘SURPRISES’: The militants claim to have successfully tested a missile capable of reaching Mach 8 and vowed to strike ships heading toward the Cape of Good Hope Yemen’s Houthi rebels claim to have a new, hypersonic missile in their arsenal, Russia’s state media reported on Thursday, potentially raising the stakes in their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and surrounding waterways against the backdrop of Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The report by the state-run RIA Novosti news agency cited an unidentified official, but provided no evidence for the claim. It comes as Moscow maintains an aggressively counter-Western foreign policy amid its grinding war on Ukraine. However, the Houthis have for weeks hinted about “surprises” they plan for the battles at sea to counter the