Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un, in his New Year Address, said that the historic, first-ever DPRK-US summit meeting and talks brought about a dramatic turn in the bilateral relationship which was the most hostile on the earth and made a great contribution to ensuring peace and security of the Korean peninsula and the region, and that it is the invariable stand of the Workers’ Party of Korea and the DPRK government and his firm will to establish a new bilateral relationship that meets the demand of the new century as clarified in the June 12 DPRK-US Joint Statement, build a lasting and durable peace regime on the Korean peninsula and advance towards complete denuclearization.

The DPRK and the US were pitted against each other politically and militarily for well over half a century, and in the period they were on the brink of nuclear war several times.

Therefore, the two countries held a summit meeting and talks last year and adopted a joint statement to declare to the whole world that both sides commit themselves to establish new relations in accordance with the desire of the peoples of the two countries for peace and prosperity and will join efforts to build a lasting and stable peace regime on the peninsula.

The DPRK has no intention to keep up unsavoury past relations, but is ready to fix it as early as possible and work to forge a new relationship in line with the aspirations of the two peoples and the requirements of the developing times.

It declared at home and abroad that it would neither make and test nuclear weapons any longer nor use and proliferate them, and it has taken various practical measures.

If the US responds to the DPRK’s proactive, prior efforts with trustworthy measures and corresponding practical actions, bilateral relations will develop wonderfully at a fast pace through the process of taking more definite and epochal measures.

But if it does not keep the promise it made in the eyes of the world, and out of miscalculation of the Korean people’s patience, it attempts to unilaterally enforce something upon them and persists in imposing sanctions and pressure against them, the DPRK may be compelled to find a new way for defending the sovereignty of the country and the supreme interests of the state and for achieving peace and stability of the Korean peninsula.

Dialogue partners will reach the destinations that are beneficial to each other without fail and obtain results which can be welcomed by the international community if they put forward fair proposals on the principle of recognizing and respecting each other by abandoning their dogged insistence and conduct negotiations with a proper stand and the will to settle issues.