North Official Warns Against GNP Win

In a briefing on Saturday in Pyongyang in commemoration of the June 10 anti-Japanese demonstrations at the Central Workers’ Hall in Pyongyang, North Korea, Ahn Kyung-ho, director of the Secretariat at the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland (CPRF), claimed that if the Grand National Party (GNP) takes power in South Korea, inter-Korean exchange and cooperation will come to a rupture and the whole nation will go down in flames of war.

Director Ahn said, “If the GNP comes to power, the June 15 Joint Statement will be reduced to nothing, with the roads between Pyongyang and Seoul and the path to Mt. Geumgang being blocked; the construction of the Gaesong Industrial Complex will be completely suspended, and the whole nation will go down in flames of war ignited by the United States.”

Given that Ahn is the head of the North Korean civilian delegation to the June 15 Grand National Unification Festival, which will be held from June 14 through June 17 in Gwangju, Korea, all eyes are on the reasons behind his “menacing remark” over the internal politics of the South.

Making his debut in inter-Korean dialogues in 1973 as an attendant of the First South-North Coordination Committee, Ahn served as the chief negotiator and spokesperson of inter-Korean high-level talks in the 1990s and is currently the North’s chairman of the committee for putting into practice the June 15 Joint Declaration.

“Eighty years have passed since the June 10 anti-Japanese demonstrations, but we have yet to establish the nation’s sovereign rights at the national level, and even in this new century, the South Korean people are still under the U.S. military occupation and control, being forced to endure unhappiness and sufferings,” said Ahn.

He also said, “Japan’s distorting its history of invasion and outspokenly revealing its scheme of robbing the Dokdo islets is an outrageous infringement on and insult to the Korean people’s dignity and sovereignty.”

taewon_ha@donga.com