(LEAD) N. Korea upholds military-first policy, economy in New Year

(ATTN: UPDATES with KCNA English quote, detail)
SEOUL, Jan. 1 (Yonhap) -- North Korea vowed on Monday to continue to uphold its
military-first policy and rebuild its economy for a better standard of living for
its citizens as it celebrated the New Year.
In a joint newspaper editorial that summed up policy goals for 2009, Pyongyang
criticized South Korea for raising military tension but toned down its customary
accusations against the United States just three weeks before the inauguration of
a new administration in Washington.
"'Make the fullest development of Songun Korea by inheriting the great tradition
of revolutionary upswing!' -- this is the military slogan that we should hold
up," the joint editorial by the North's ruling party, army and youth military
said. It was carried by the North's Korean Central News Agency.
Songun is the North's military-first policy adopted by leader Kim Jong-il in
1995, a year after his father and the country's founder Kim Il-sung died at age
82. The father-to-son power transfer was the first-ever in a communist state.
The editorial stressed rebuilding the North's ailing economy. South Korea's
central bank say North Korea's economy contracted for the second straight year in
2007, with no better signs imminent amid the global economic crisis.
"An important task facing us in the economic construction at present is to
surpass the high-water mark in production in all sectors of the national
economy," it said.
North Korea criticized South Korea for raising tension with its "confrontational"
policy. Inter-Korean relations dipped to a record low this past year, marked by a
suspension of dialogue and no government food aid from Seoul to the impoverished
North. Conservative South Korean President Lee Myung-bak adopted a tougher policy
in his first year in office than his liberal predecessors, with calls for North
Korea to give up its nuclear weapons program and improve its dire human rights
conditions.
"All the Korean people should resolutely stop and destroy maneuvers of
anti-unification forces that go backward against the trend of independent
unification, caught by pro-U.S. toadyism and hostility against their own people,"
the editorial said.
It said the past year marked a historic turn with the 60th anniversary of the
founding of the country, saying "This is a demonstration of the extraordinary
leadership of Kim Jong-il, a great strategist and peerless statesman."
The new year will be "a year of a new revolutionary surge" for the "building of a
prosperous nation," it said.
hkim@yna.co.kr
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