With warning to US, North Korea marks end of Korean War

The Korean War anniversary celebration brought a celebratory tone to the capital of North Korea, with the general public using the holiday to show their patriotic pride by laying flowers before statues of North Korea’s first president Kim Il-sung and his son, Kim Jong-il.

In addition, while celebrating the anniversary of the Korean War that took the lives of more than 54,000 American soldiers sixty-two years ago, North Korean officials claim they were victorious. “[W]e acknowledge their continued pursuits in that regard [acknowledgment as a nuclear state] and continue to warn about the threats and the dangers that those pursuits cause to the Korean Peninsula”, Kirby said when asked whether he thought the US acknowledged North Korea as a nuclear state.

Despite North Korea’s refusal to negotiate, Seiler, said that the U.S.is open to negotiate when the country is ready to do so. Once again, mandates similar to the Iran deal will not work because Pyongyang will not even discuss the possibility of freezing or dismantling its nuclear capability without removing the extended nuclear deterrence by the United States.

Seiler will also visit China and Japan in what is seen as the latest in a series of visits by U.S. nuclear envoys aimed at jump starting the North Korean talks which broke down in 2008.

After the agreement was announced, U.S. Undersecretary of State Wendy Sherman called on North Korea to learn from the deal.

South Korean state media reported that the North was apparently preparing for a new long-range missile test sometime in the near future.

The deal, in return for lifting USA, European Union and United Nations sanctions which have crippled its financial system, stipulates that Iran should settle for lengthy-time period limits on its nuclear programme.

In his speech to veterans, Kim stressed the importance of instilling the country’s young people with the same fighting spirit and devotion as the generation that experienced the war.

“It is more than 60 years since the ceasefire on (the) land, but peace has not yet settled on it”, he told the meeting, which included high-level officials, veterans and diplomats stationed in Pyongyang. The statement at a daily press briefing by spokesperson John Kirby came in response to a commentary the same day by the North Korean Foreign Ministry stating that North Korea was a full-fledged nuclear power and would not abandon its nuclear weapons.

“The past Korean war brought about the beginning of the downhill turn for the US, but the second Korean war will bring the final ruin to US imperialism”.