Spokesman for KPA Unit Stationed in Area of Mt. Kumgang Issues Special Statement

Spokesman for KPA Unit Stationed in Area of Mt. Kumgang Issues Special Statement

Pyongyang, August 3 (KCNA) -- A spokesman for the unit of the Korean People's Army stationed in the area of Mt. Kumgang issued today a special statement in connection with the unsavory incident that occurred in the area of Mt. Kumgang on July 11 in which an unidentified south Korean tourist was shot to death after illegally intruding into the area under the military control of the north side.
The statement says:
We still do not know for what purpose the killed tourist crossed the boundary fence which bans free access in early dawn and what the tourist was going to do after intruding deep into the said area.
Whatever the cause of the incident might be, our side already expressed regret at it through a relevant organ, taking into consideration the fact that the tourist was a compatriot although the tourist met death due to the tourist's own mistake.
But no sooner had the incident occurred than the south Korean puppets, as if they had been waiting for the incident to occur, went so imprudent as to kick up a reckless racket of confrontation with the north almost every day, misleading the public opinion at home and abroad.
Traitor Lee Myung Bak and other men in authority of the puppet government including those concerned of the "Ministry of Unification" are taking the lead in this campaign and it is joined in by the "Grand National Party" and other conservative political parties and organizations.
On July 31 Han Sung Su, puppet prime minister, again made his appearance in an official event where he behaved so ridiculously as to demand the north "punish" the one responsible for the incident and make an understandable "clarification."
We can not but say what we should do, given that the Lee Myung Bak group keeps making much fuss, slandering us just like a guilty party filing the suit first.
The recent racket kicked up by the Lee group is nothing but a deliberate anti-DPRK confrontational ruckus launched by the group on the basis of the fiction cooked up on its own presumption and judgment in a bid to achieve a sinister aim.
A soldier of the KPA spotted the above-mentioned unidentified intruder into the area under the military control of the north side at around 4:50 a.m. on July 11 in a place about 800 m north of the boundary fence.
The soldier who was on combat duty at that time asked the intruder to stop several times according to the relevant regulations in order to ascertain the identity, given that it was too early for the soldier to judge from which direction the intruder came and discern whether the trespasser was a man or a woman.
The trespasser, however, began to flee away, disregarding the soldier's repeated demand. This compelled the soldier to fire even blank shots in an effort to stop the intruder at any cost. Defying this, the intruder ran away so quickly that the soldier was compelled to open fire at the intruder, killing intruder in the end.
This is the truth quite contrary to the Lee group's propaganda.
Frankly speaking, we have so many things that require clarifications but the tourist met death after illegally intruding into the area under the military control of our side.
Nevertheless, the Lee group is urging us to make "apology" and "probe the truth" while making desperate efforts to make the public believe that the KPA soldier took an "excessive counter-action" against the intruder in the area under the military control though the soldier was well aware that the intruder was an unarmed tourist who was on a walk at dawn.
Worse still, they behaved so shamelessly as to visit this or that country in a bid to arrange even a "joint survey of the scene" through "international cooperation".
It is our stand that as far as the fact-finding probe is concerned, this request was fully met when the personnel of the south side permanently stationed at Mt. Kumgang tourist resort inspected the scene, confirmed the dead and took over the body.
Therefore, we interpreted the racket kicked up by traitor Lee Myung Bak right after the occurrence of the incident as a foolish and clumsy behavior betraying his ignorance of military affairs as he has never served in the army and termed it a deliberate anti-DPRK confrontational move to bring the inter-Korean relations to a graver phase.
The Lee group is making much fuss that what the soldier of the KPA did was a wanton violation of the law on the tour of Mt. Kumgang and the agreement on entry, exit and stay in the tourist resort reached between the north and the south though it was a legitimate military action. Clear is an aim sought by the group through this.
The group is working hard to lay the blame for the incident at the door of our side.
Traitor Lee is kicking up all these rackets, absurdly linking the incident that occurred due to the intruder's mistake with the "vital right of people" and hyping and falsifying the incident. This is another politically motivated charade to evade the responsibility for having made the vital rights of south Koreans a victim of American cattle infected with mad cow disease and divert the criticism of him to us.
The reality shows that traitor Lee Myung Bak is driving the frozen inter-Korean relations to a catastrophic phase and he has reached the phase of completely hamstringing the implementation of the historic June 15 joint declaration and the October 4 declaration after going beyond the phase of negating these declarations.
In view of such grave provocation of the Lee Myung Bak group as persisting in its reckless anti-DPRK confrontational racket after unilaterally suspending the tour of Mt. Kumgang under the pretext of the recent case the spokesman for the above-said unit of the KPA made it clear that the unit is authorized to take the following measures:
We will expel all the persons of the south side staying in the Mt. Kumgang tourist area we deem unnecessary.
We will more strictly limit and control the passage of the persons and vehicles of the south side through the Military Demarcation Line to enter the area of Mt. Kumgang.
We will take strong military counter-actions against even the slightest hostile actions in the tourist resort in the area of Mt. Kumgang and the area under the military control from now on.
The statement warned that in case the present inter-Korean relations reach a catastrophic phase, the Lee Myung Bak group will be held entirely accountable for this before the times and the nation.