Speech at the Pyongyang Mass Rally to Welcome

the Party and Government Delegation
of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic
June 23, 1973

The policy of the government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea for independent, peaceful reunification clarified by President Kim Il Sung on June 23, 1973

1. To improve the present relations between the north and south of Korea and accelerate the peaceful reunification of the country, it is necessary, first of all, to eliminate military confrontation and ease tension between the north and south.

To remove military confrontation and alleviate tension between the north and south is a matter of pressing urgency and
vital importance at present in dispelling the misunderstanding and mistrust and deepening mutual understanding and trust,
creating an atmosphere of great national unity, ameliorating the relations between the north and south and bringing about the
peaceful reunification of the country.

2. To improve north-south relations and expedite the country’s reunification, it is necessary to bring about multilateral collaboration and interchange between the north and south in the political, military, diplomatic, economic and cultural fields.

Multilateral collaboration and interchange between the north and south are of tremendous importance in reuniting the severed
ties of the nation and providing preconditions for reunification.

3. In order to settle the question of the country’s reunification in conformity with the will and demand of our people, it is necessary to enable the masses of people of all levels in the north and south to participate in the nationwide patriotic work for national reunification.

The dialogue between the north and south for national reunification should not be confined to the authorities of the north and south but should be held on a nationwide scale.

4. In speeding up the country’s reunification it is very important, today, to institute a north-south federation under the name of a single country.

Under the prevailing conditions the most reasonable way for reunification is to convene the Great National Congress and achieve national unity, and on this basis, institute the north-south federation, leaving the two existing social systems in the north and south as they are for the time being.

5. Korea should be prevented from being partitioned into “two Koreas” permanently as a result of the freezing of national division and that the north and south should also work together in the field of external affairs.

Korean people are a single people who have lived with the same culture and the same language through many centuries, and they
cannot live separated into two parts. The proposal for Korean reunification is to remove military confrontation and ease

tension between the north and south, bring about multilateral collaboration and interchange between the two parts, convene the
Great National Congress composed of representatives of people of all levels and political parties and social organizations in the
north and south, institute the north-south federation under the single name of the Federal Republic of Koryo and enter the UN  under that name. When this proposal for the country’s reunification is put into effect, there will be a great improvement in accomplishing the historic cause of peaceful national reunification on the principle of the North-South Joint Statement, as commonly desired by our people and the world’s people.