New Changes in DPRK's Diplomacy

At the beginning of the new year, the trend of the diplomacy of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) has been the focus of attention, which can be illustrated by the following facts:

Establishing diplomatic relations with Italy, one of the seven major Western industrial countries on January 4; signing a new friendship treaty with Russia on February 9; Kim Jong-il, top Korean leader, visited Chinese Embassy in Pyongyang on March 5; holding talks with the United States in New York on March 7; Foreign Minister Paek Nam-sun paid a visit to China on March 18. Meanwhile, DPRK has made frequent contacts with Australia and some Southeast Asian countries, and has quickened its step of contacts with Britain, France, Germany and some other Western countries and talks on normalization of North Korea with Japan in April. Korea's diplomacy has become increasingly active, and the new characteristics of its multilateral diplomacy have become more transparent. This is a positive change.

After the conclusion of Cold War, containment and antagonism can no longer meet the requirements of the development of our times. In recent years, the tense situation in the Korean Peninsula has been eased somewhat thanks to the efforts made by the concerned parties. Especially in the past year, peace, conciliation and cooperation have become the new theme. Last year, the US government made adjustments to its over-half-a-century-long containment policy toward North Korea and began to pursue its new policy of "conducting dialogs supplemented by containment" and partially lifted its 50-year-long economic sanctions against North Korea. The relations between Japan and North Korea also witnessed positive improvement, following a delegation headed by former Japanese Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama visited North Korea last December and the Japanese government decided to lift sanctions imposed on North Korea in 1998 because of North Korea's launch of a satellite. In addition, economic and cultural exchanges between North and South Koreas have been enhanced, with notable results in the same period. Under these circumstances, the North Korean government made timely adjustments to its foreign policy, accelerated the pace of pushing active, multilateral diplomacy and achieved encouraging results in this regard..

The new diplomatic policy indicates that North Korea is willing to improve relations with countries including the West and is thus welcomed by the whole international community. What's more, the new policy will definitely help develop its economic cooperation and exchanges in varied fields with other countries and create a peaceful and stable environment in Korean Peninsula for further expediting its own economic construction.

At present, the trend of d¨¦tente has come into being in Korean Peninsula, but overshadows of Cold War has far from being completely disappeared and the normalization of diplomatic relations with South Korea, the United States and Japan will by no means be accomplished overnight. It is an arduous task and the road is long, but we believe that North Korea's active and multilateral diplomatic policy will make progress in the course of constantly overcoming difficulties.

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