Mick Hartley

The final word on those rumours of Syrian-North Korean nuclear cooperation, from the Korean Central News Agency of the DPRK:

A spokesman for the DPRK Foreign Ministry gave the following answer to a question put by KCNA today as regards the rumor about “secret nuclear cooperation” between the DPRK and Syria spread by some media of the United States:

Recently, the New York Times and some other media of the United States spread the rumor about the DPRK’s secret nuclear cooperation with Syria. This is sheer misinformation.

The DPRK solemnly declared in October 2006 that, being a responsible nuclear weapons state, it would never allow nuclear transfer, and has stood by its words.

The DPRK never makes an empty talk but always tells truth.

The above-said story is nothing but a clumsy plot hatched by the dishonest forces who do not like to see any progress at the six-party talks and in the DPRK-U.S. relations.

So there you have it.

[In other KCNA news:

Pyongyang, September 18 (KCNA) — A performance of art circle members of the Hungnam Fertilizer Complex is going on at the People’s Palace of Culture here everyday, starting on last Saturday.

The art circle members gave this art performance full of faith and optimism of the working class in the Songun era to please Kim Jong Il when he visited the complex.

The performance was enjoyed by officials of ministries and national institutions, creators and artistes in the field of culture and arts and working people in the city.

Put on the stage of performance, which began with “Glory to General”, a paean the workers in Hungnam present to Kim Jong Il, were such numbers as chorus “Blue Sky over My Country”, female solo “Our Yearning for the President”, singing with drums “General on a Galloping White Horse” and comic story “Voice of Hungnam”.

The performers well represented their unshakable faith and will to share the idea and breathe the same breath with Kim Jong Il and become vanguard and shock brigade in the onward movement for building a socialist economic power along with the march of history which echoed in Hungnam during the period of building a new country.]