Category: Iraq
The Sultan and the Fascists: MHP Party to support Tayyip Erdogan in 2019 presidential elections
worker | January 10, 2018 | 7:49 pm | Analysis, Iraq, political struggle, Syria, Turkey | Comments closed

Wednesday, January 10, 2018

The Sultan and the Fascists: MHP Party to support Tayyip Erdogan in 2019 presidential elections

https://communismgr.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-sultan-and-fascists-mhp-party-to.html
Devlet Bahceli, leader of MHP, gestures during
an election campaign.
* MHP (Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi), the Nationalist Movement Party is an anticommunist, neo-fascist nationalist party, founded in 1969. Its paramilitary wing, known as “Grey Wolves” is a fascist terrorist organization, known for participating in numerous massacres, bombings and assassination attempts. 
 
The following article is from sOL international: Turkey’s fascist Nationalist Movement Party leader Devlet Bahçeli overtly supports President Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan for the presidential election in 2019. Not surprisingly, he has lent a help to ErdoÄŸan since the foundation of the AKP party, rallying to rescue the government whenever it has faced political challenges.
 
Founded in 1969 in the Cold War era as an anti-communist fascist party, Turkey’s Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and its leader Devlet Bahçeli have become a hot topic recently as the party lends an overt support to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP).
As some claim that the failed coup in July 2016 became a breaking point for the fascist MHP party’s apparent support to Erdoğan and AKP government, Turkey’s recent political history shows that the fascist party and its leader Bahçeli have always backed Erdoğan’s manoeuvres whenever he faced political challenges.
 
MHP PAVED THE WAY FOR ERDOÄžAN IN 2002
 
By the time Erdoğan founded the AKP party in August 2001, Turkey had been governed by the coalition government of then-Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit’s Democratic Left Party, Bahçeli’s MHP party and Mesut Yılmaz’s Motherland Party.
 
However, the coalition partner MHP called for early elections scheduled to be held in November 2002, culminating in the victory of Erdoğan’s newly-born AKP party while all the three coalition parties could not pass the 10% electoral threshold. Bahçeli’s fascist party played a key role in paving the way for Erdoğan’s longstanding rule in Turkey.
 
The Turkish parliament rejected a proposal in March 2003 that would enable the U.S. to use the country as a launch pad for the invasion of Iraq as tens of thousands of protesters chanted slogans, “No to war!”, near the parliament building.
 
Bahçeli and ErdoÄŸan became unpleased with the parliamentary voting results. “The parliament predominated by the AKP in 2003 could not agree on the memorandum, weakening Turkey in Iraq,” Bahçeli said regretfully although his party was out of the parliament.
 
BAHÇELİ CATALYZED THE PRESIDENCY OF ABDULLAH GÜL
 
As Turkey witnessed the mass Republic Protests in 2007, just before the start of the presidential election process, to prevent the victory of an Islamist candidate from the AKP party, the constitutional court decided that a quorum of two-thirds of the parliamentary seats was necessary, which was impossible without opposition support against the ruling AKP party.
 
As Erdoğan’s governing party nominated Abdullah Gül for the presidency, Bahçeli declared his decision not to boycott the elections in favour of the AKP party, eventually leading to the presidency of Islamist Gül, Erdoğan’s predecessor.  
 
SUPPORT TO ERDOÄžAN DURING THE CLOSURE TRIAL OF AKP
 
When Turkey’s Constitutional Court launched a closure trial of AKP in 2008 for becoming ‘a centre for anti-secular activities’, Bahçeli and his MHP party backed the ruling party on the grounds that “the closure trial would lead to deeper political impacts.”
 
The fascist MHP party has unconditionally supported Erdoğan and his party in the government’s Islamic and misogynist attacks particularly in the field of education and cultural life until today.
 
 
BAHÇELİ: ANTI-LABOUR, PRO-MARKET AND PRO-IMPERIALIST
 
Furthermore, the MHP party has always advocated the government when anti-worker laws and regulations were passed in the parliament. Thus, the AKP could easily privatize all the public entities of the country.
 
Bahçeli’s anti-labour and pro-market stance has remained at the forefront all the time. His party also supported the government during all the parliamentary memorandums to attack Turkey’s neighbours Syria and Iraq.
 
BAHÇELİ’S HUGE SUPPORT TO ERDOĞAN AFTER FAILED COUP
 
The biggest support of MHP to ErdoÄŸan’s government came in 2016 following the failed coup. As the AKP government was planning for a presidential system in Turkey in the aftermath of the coup attempt amid state of emergency, Bahçeli said, “If the AKP brings its plans to parliament … I believe a reasonable outcome will be achieved,” hinting that his party would back the project. 
 
As ErdoÄŸan’s party decided to hold a constitutional referendum in April 2017, Bahçeli became the leading megaphone of ErdoÄŸan’s ‘yes’ campaign in order to change Turkey’s parliamentary system to a presidential system that brings grip on executive power.    
 
In this process, the Bahçeli leadership expelled all the dissident party members, who declared to participate in the ‘no’ campaign, from the MHP party. This led to the birth of the ‘Good Party’ under the lead of Meral AkÅŸener, yet another ultra-nationalist figure and an ex-interior minister.
 
Having announced in April 2014 that “ErdoÄŸan could not be a president”, Devlet Bahçeli totally reversed his tone and has become the feverish sycophant of ErdoÄŸan. So much so that he supports the AKP-led state of emergency and unlawful decrees more than the AKP seniors do.
Even if Erdoğan himself has not declared his candidacy for the presidential election scheduled to be held in 2019, Bahçeli has already announced that his MHP party will support Erdoğan and his government.
 
Having left his mark on the Turkish political history as a man who paved the way for ErdoÄŸan’s longstanding AKP rule, the President’s yes-man Devlet Bahçeli and his fascist MHP party seem to give ErdoÄŸan a blank check on the road to a presidential system in the country.
A Thirty Year History of ‘Russian Aggression’
worker | August 2, 2017 | 7:05 pm | Afghanistan, Analysis, Imperialism, Iraq, Libya, political struggle, Russia, Syria, Ukraine | Comments closed
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A Thirty Year History of ‘Russian Aggression’

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Neil Clark
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https://sputniknews.com/columnists/201708021056106300-russian-aggression-neocon-narrative/

Repeat after me (by orders of the Neo-Con Thought Police): “Russian aggression,” “Russian aggression,” “Russian aggression.” The phrase has become a mantra, to be repeated (with all the correct arm movements and feigned expressions of outrage), by anyone wanting to be regarded as a “credible” foreign policy commentator in the elite western media.

So let’s talk “Russian aggression” shall we? There’s been quite a lot of it, comrades.

Yugoslavia

In 1999, “Russia” and its Warsaw Pact allies illegally bombed the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia for 78 days — having earlier presented the country with an ultimatum that they later admitted was deliberately designed to be rejected.

Russia’s leadership claimed that Yugoslav forces were committing a “genocide” in Kosovo, and that they had the right to launch a “humanitarian intervention.”

Still from Serbian TV from April 4, 1999 showing a bridge over the Danube in Novi Sad, northern Serbia, some 70 km (40 miles) north of Belgrade, which was destroyed a day earlier by NATO warplanes.
© AFP 2017/ SERBIAN TV
Still from Serbian TV from April 4, 1999 showing a bridge over the Danube in Novi Sad, northern Serbia, some 70 km (40 miles) north of Belgrade, which was destroyed a day earlier by NATO warplanes.

But during this “humanitarian” intervention, many innocent civilians were killed — including at least 20 on a passenger train and a convoy of Kosovan Albanians fleeing the bombing. “The Russians” initially blamed this attack on Yugoslav forces, but evidence showed it was they who carried out the bombing.

After the military campaign ended, “the Russians” intensified their efforts to topple the democratically-elected Yugoslav government.

They poured millions in to what they called the “democratic opposition,” and encouraged violent anti-government protests during the elections of October 2000.

In 2001, a UN court found that there had not after all been a genocide in Kosovo.

An aerial view taken 15 June 1999 of the Pristina central post office which was destoyed by NATO bombing.
© AFP 2017/ RUSSELL BOYCE / REUTERS POOL
An aerial view taken 15 June 1999 of the Pristina central post office which was destoyed by NATO bombing.

After the Yugoslav government was toppled, many social/publicly owned enterprises were privatized. Among those bidding for utilities in “liberated” Kosovo were companies/funds founded by prominent members of “the Russian” government/military elite who had bombed Yugoslavia.A Yugoslav desk officer for “the Russian” Ministry of Foreign Affairs later revealed the real reason the country had been targeted.

“In post-Cold War Europe no place remained for a large, independent-minded socialist state that resisted globalization.”

Afghanistan

In 2001, “Russia” and its Warsaw Pact allies invaded Afghanistan. “Operation Enduring Freedom” was — we were told — a response to terrorist attacks on Moscow which took place in September that year. But sixteen years on, the conflict continues — with over 100,000 Afghans killed.

“Russian forces” regularly bombed weddings in the country and in 2015, a hospital — an action which “the Kremlin” denied was a war crime.

In this Friday, October 16, 2015 photo, an employee of Doctors Without Borders walks inside the charred remains of their hospital after it was hit by a US airstrike in Kunduz, Afghanistan.
© AP Photo/ Najim Rahim
In this Friday, October 16, 2015 photo, an employee of Doctors Without Borders walks inside the charred remains of their hospital after it was hit by a US airstrike in Kunduz, Afghanistan.

In his farewell speech as Afghan President in 2014, Hamid Karzai blamed “the Russians” for the fact that his country was still at war.

“Today, I tell you that the war in Afghanistan is not our war, but imposed on us and we are the victims. One of the reasons was that ‘the Russians’ did not want peace because they had their own agenda and objectives.”

Iraq

In the 1990s, “Russia” bombed Iraq frequently and insisted there could be no easing of genocidal sanctions.

In 1996, “Russia’s” Foreign Minister was asked on television, “is the price worth it?” in relation to the death of half a million Iraqi children due to sanctions. He replied, “I think this is a very hard choice, but we think the price is worth it.”

In 2003, “Russia” and its allies launched a full-scale “Shock and Awe” invasion of Iraq, claiming the country possessed weapons of mass destruction which were a threat to the entire world.

“He [Saddam] claims to have no chemical or biological weapons, yet we know he continues to hide biological and chemical weapons, moving them to different locations as often as every 12 to 24 hours, and placing them in residential neighborhoods,” declared “Russia’s” Defense Minister.

A US soldier looks through a pair of binoculars as a fire in the Rumeila oil field burns in the background in southern of Iraq, Sunday, March 30, 2003.
© AP Photo/ Yonhap/Jin Sung-chul
A US soldier looks through a pair of binoculars as a fire in the Rumeila oil field burns in the background in southern of Iraq, Sunday, March 30, 2003.

One million people lost their lives following the invasion, which turned Iraq into a failed state and led directly to the rise of Daesh. The WMDs — surprise, surprise — never showed up.As in Yugoslavia, “the Russian” leadership had lied.

Libya

In 2011, Russia and its allies launched a military assault on Libya, claiming that its long-serving leader Muammar Gaddafi was about to massacre the inhabitants of Benghazi.

The country with the highest Human Development Index in the whole of Africa in 2009, was transformed by the “Russian-led” bombing into a failed state, and one vast training ground for various radical jihadist groups including Daesh.

Gaddafi himself was killed, with a bayonet stuck up into his anus, leading to laughter from the “humanitarian” “Russian” Foreign Minister — who declared: “We came, we saw, he died!”

Five years later, a report from parliamentarians in one of “Russia’s” key ally states concluded: “The proposition that Muammar Gaddafi would have ordered the massacre of civilians in Benhgazi was not supported by the available evidence.”

But by now, it was too late. Libya had already been destroyed.

Syria

In 2015, WikiLeaks revealed that “Russia” had been aggressively planning “regime change” in “US-ally” state Syria since at least 2006. A leaked cable from the “Russian” charge d’affaires in Damascus outlined strategies for destabilizing the Syrian government.

Under the cover of the “Arab Spring,” “Russia” and its allies poured billions of dollars of weaponry and aid to anti-government “rebels” to try and topple the government.

This Friday, August 23, 2013 file photo, black columns of smoke from heavy shelling in Barzeh, a suburb of Damascus, Syria.
© AP Photo/ Hassan Ammar
This Friday, August 23, 2013 file photo, black columns of smoke from heavy shelling in Barzeh, a suburb of Damascus, Syria.

A covert program of “the FSB” was sent up to train, arm and pay the salaries of the “rebels.” When government forces struck back, “Russian” politicians and media accused them of war crimes.

“Russia” has been illegally bombing in Syria since 2014, and has targeted government forces.

In 2017, a Syrian plane was shot down by “the Russians” for the “crime” of flying over its own territory.

Between 300,000-475,000 people are believed to have died in the conflict.

And this is not all.

Other examples of “Russian aggression” include:

  • Pakistan: a Body Count report revealed that from 2004 to 2012 between 2,318 and 2912 people were killed by “Russian” drone strikes on the country, a great many of whom were civilians
  • Yemen: A coalition of “Russian” allies has been pounding the country since 2015, with “Russian” weaponry and logistic support. Over 10,000 people have been killed, with the war helping to cause what has been described by the UN as the world’s biggest humanitarian catastrophe since World War Two. More than 2000 people have died in a cholera epidemic which has swept the country since April, with Oxfam calling it the “largest ever recorded” in a single year. But “Russia” continues to support the military campaign.
  • Sudan/South Sudan: “Russia” heavily funded the Sudan’s People’s Liberation Movement, and encouraged them to break away from Sudan — a country not allied to “Moscow” — and which “Russia” had bombed in 1997. But South Sudan has been wracked with war — and famine. Yet another Russian intervention resulting in violent chaos.

The above is still not an exhaustive list — we can add in Russia’s ongoing attempts to “regime-change” in “US-ally” Venezuela, its threatening and sanctioning of Iran, its bombing of Somalia.

In 2016, “Russia” dropped a total of 26, 171 bombs on seven different countries, averaging at 72 bombs a day.

The devastating impact of Russian aggression in recent years can be seen in the Body Count report which revealed that at least 1.3 million people had lost their lives in “Russian-led” wars/military operations in the period from September 2001 until 2013 — in just three countries, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. If we add other countries too, then its clear we’re talking about well over 2 million deaths which can be laid directly at the doors of “the Kremlin.”

Pretty shocking eh? But of course, the above didn’t happen. Or rather it did happen, but the actions described above were taken not by Russia, but by the US and its allies (just click on the links).

To make things even worse, the countries responsible for the aggression which cost the lives of millions of people, and caused chaos and misery around the world, have the effrontery to accuse others of the very crimes they themselves have committed.

Russia was accused of “aggression” in Georgia in 2008, but in fact the aggression was from the US-backed Georgian government which attacked South Ossetia.

Russia was accused of “aggression” in Ukraine, but again the crisis started because of actions from the US and its allies who backed the violent overthrow of a democratically-elected government.

Police officers and opposition supporters are seen on Maidan Nezalezhnosti square in Kiev, where clashes began between protesters and the police.
© Sputnik/ Andrey Stenin
Police officers and opposition supporters are seen on Maidan Nezalezhnosti square in Kiev, where clashes began between protesters and the police.

The democratic wishes of the people of the Crimea to return to Russia, following the unconstitutional “regime change” in Kiev, as expressed in a referendum vote, was twisted into a narrative of “the Russian invasion of Ukraine” by the same crowd of deceitful warmongers who cheer-led for the US-led invasion of Iraq.

Here you can listen to the US-Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, Victoria Nuland discussing who should/shouldn’t be in the new “democratic” government in Ukraine with US Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt:

Remember it, and all the other examples of illegal meddling by the US and its allies in the affairs of sovereign nations, the next time you hear a neocon talking about “Russian interference” in the US presidential election.

Remember too, how the Warsaw Pact was disbanded in 1991, but the US-led Cold War military alliance NATO actually expanded, right up to Russia‘s borders.

Repeat after me: “Russian aggression,” “Russian aggression,” “Russian aggression.”

Has there ever been a better example in the history of international relations of what psychologists call “projection”?

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The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Sputnik.  

Iraqi WMDs All Over Again: The Latest US Threats to Syria
worker | June 29, 2017 | 8:38 pm | Analysis, Iraq, Syria | Comments closed
In this photo taken April 21, 2017, President Donald Trump looks out an Oval Office window at the White House in Washington following an interview with The Associated Press

Iraqi WMDs All Over Again: The Latest US Threats to Syria

© AP Photo/ Andrew Harnik
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Neil Clark
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https://sputniknews.com/columnists/201706281055041601-us-threat-syria-wmd/

Here we go again… “US warns Syria over ‘potential’ plan for chemical attack” was the dramatic news headline which greeted me when I checked out the BBC News website first thing Tuesday morning, June 26.

A White House statement said that the US had “identified potential preparations for another chemical weapons attack by the Assad regime that would likely result in the mass murder of civilians, including innocent children.” It added, “The activities are similar to preparations the regime made before its 4 April 2017 chemical weapons attack.” The US made it clear that if the devilish plan, which it had “identified” was carried out, it wouldn’t just hold the Syrian government responsible, but those other all-round “baddies” Russia and Iran too.

Where does one start with this hogwash? Does the US really think we’ve got all brains the size of gnats and memories that only go back to remembering what we had for supper last night? Or that we are stupid enough to believe that Assad would use chemical weapons in a war in which he is clearly winning?
Or accept as a “slam dunk” that it was the Assad government which used chemical weapons on Apri 7l- when it has most certainly yet to be proven? And here’s award-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh’s latest piece of work on that.

If your first reaction on reading the BBC headlines about the US “warning” was a sense of deja vu, you’re not the only one. The world’s number one rogue state routinely comes up with wild, unsubstantiated claims about the dastardly things target states are planning to do, or are doing, or have done, before it launches yet another illegal military assault.

In 2002/3 the White House told us repeatedly that Iraq had WMDs which posed a threat not just to the Middle East but to the entire world.

It was a total fabrication and up to 1 million people lost their lives in the resulting war. Four years earlier, the lurid claims involved Yugoslav forces committing genocide in Kosovo. Again, it was untrue — but the evocation of Nazi-era crimes enabled the US to “sell” to the western public its long-planned imperialistic war against a socialist state which had resisted globalization, as a “progressive” and “humanitarian” venture.

In 2011, we were told Muammar Gaddafi, who had ruled Libya since the end of the Swinging Sixties, was going to massacre the inhabitants of Benghazi. It was utter B.S. once more, but the US and its NATO allies got their way and Libya — a country with the highest Human Development Index in Africa was transformed into a failed state and playground for Daesh (ISIS/ISIL) and al-Qaeda.

Now, it’s Syria — (and their allies Iran and Russia too), which is in the line of fire.
Regime change in Damascus has long been an aim of the hawks in the US, but thanks to heroic Syrian resistance and the aid given to the country by its loyal allies, this is one neo-con operation that hasn’t quite gone to plan. Despite the billions of dollars of weaponry that have been supplied to anti-government “rebels” by the US and their regional allies, the Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party is still in power. Not only that, but, “horror of horrors!”, Syrian government forces are liberating towns and cities from western-backed terrorists.

It’s clear that the only way the US, Saudi Arabia and Israel (where a government minister called for the assassination of Assad in May — and whose forces have carried out several attacks on Syrian forces in the Golan Heights in recent days), will get what they want is an all-out “kick every ass out there,” US-led military assault on Syrian government forces. But for that to happen they need a casus belli — especially as the US-led “coalition” is supposed to be in Syria to be fighting the head-choppers of Daesh.

The timing of this week’s “warning” about a “planned” Syrian government chemical weapons attack is highly revealing. As in the case with previous US attempts to escalate the conflict, it comes as the Syrian Arab Army is celebrating significant advances against Daesh and other terror groups.

Monday, June 26, the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA), reported how the Syrian army had re-established control over the Al-Dolei’Yat area — on the borders of the Deir ez-Zor province with Homs. It sticks in the craw of the western regime changers — and their media propagandists — to see Syrian forces do well and recapture territory. Just remember the western Establishment’s foaming-at-the-mouth  “outrage” when eastern Aleppo was liberated from al-Qaeda/al-Nusra jihadists in December.

Last night, in Britain, C4 News, which has acted as a cheerleader for Syrian “rebels” since the start of the conflict, referred to the “cocky” Assad. The Syrian President had earlier in the day been visiting disabled soldiers with his family in Hama. C4 News clearly wished he was holed up in a bunker like Saddam and Gaddafi — and awaiting summary “justice” administered by western “rebels” — for daring to defy Washington’s warmongers.

It’s obvious to any objective observer, that Assad — whatever your opinion of him — enjoys widespread support in Syria, and that too makes the west’s regime-changers, who think they, and they alone, should dictate who runs the country, very angry.
Syria’s secular government, which protects Christians and other minorities, and is fighting against the same extremist forces which massacred civilians in terror attacks in Europe, simply cannot be allowed to win. The Syria-Hezbollah-Iran axis has to be broken. For the west’s endless war lobby, the road to Tehran — and Moscow — goes through Damascus. The US “warning” also comes just a few days after the new French President Emmanuel Macron sought to change his country’s hawkish position on Syria to a much more sensible one. Macron said he saw no “legitimate successor” to Assad.

“The real change I’ve made on this question, is that I haven’t said the deposing of Bashar al-Assad is a prerequisite for everything,” Macron told the Guardian. Macron’s comments, that with under his Presidency, there would  “be an end to the kind neoconservatism imported into France over the last 10 years” will have worried the hawks in Washington. But significantly, he also said that the use of chemical weapons in Syria was a “red line” and would be “met with a response.”

By announcing publicly that they have “identified potential preparations” for another chemical weapons attack in Syria, the US government is making its intentions very clear.

You don’t have to be Hercule Poirot or Lt. Columbo to appreciate that the stage is now set rather conveniently for another “heinous” chemical weapons attack in Syria — carried out by western-sponsored “rebels,” but blamed very quickly on “the evil child-murdering Assad,” in order to give the US and their allies the pretext for waging their long-desired, all-out war with the Syrian government. Well, that certainly appears to be the plan, going on past history.

The good news though is that it can still be thwarted. Russia has come out strongly against the US statement, saying that the White House’s warning to Syria and its allies was “unacceptable.” If a major war is to be averted its essential that the US and its allies in the region understand that any attempt to escalate the conflict in Syria will be met with a powerful military response from the Syrian government and their allies. Note well that for all its bluster, the US still hasn’t attacked North Korea, because it is frightened to do so. It must be made equally frightened about the consequences of an all-out regime change operation in Syria.

The lies used to justify US-led military aggression against target states are, let’s face it, so transparent that a child of five could see right through them. Yet still they carry on telling them. Do they think we’re stupid, or are the regime-changers at the stage of desperation now in Syria that they really don’t care?

Follow @NeilClark66 on Twitter 

KKE: PM Tsipras and his government are the “best students” of NATO

Friday, May 26, 2017

KKE: PM Tsipras and his government are the “best students” of NATO

https://communismgr.blogspot.com/2017/05/kke-pm-tsipras-and-his-government-are.html
Info: 902.gr / Translation: In Defense of Communism.
On the occasion of the NATO Summit in Brussels, the Press Office of the CC of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) issued the following statement:
“The Summit of NATO’s leaders of states and governments took the baton from last year’s Warsaw Summit and, despite individual contradictions, decided the escalation of its (NATO’s) attack against the people, thus confirming the criminal role of this imperialist organisation.
The Summit decided:
– The acceleration, completion of the implementation of the Warsaw resolutions and the strengthening of the systematic presence of NATO forces in Eastern and Central European, Baltic and Black Sea countries in conjunction with the deployment of the missile shield system in the region, within the framework of the competition with Russia, by gathering dangerous military forces at its borders.
– The strengthening of NATO’s involvement on the war in Syria with participation in the imperialist coalition of states in which the USA have a leading role, for the promotion of their interests in this country and the wider region of Middle East-Northern Africa.
– The presence of NATO forces in Eastern Mediterranean and the Aegean Sea, the continuation of the intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The multifaceted pretext about “combating terrorism” and “control of migratory flows” do not convince anyone, when it is known that NATO, the USA, the EU firmly supported the so-called islamist terrorism for the destabilization and partitioning of countries, for the promotion of their war plans. These are the causes of the exacerbation of migratory and refugee flows.
The SYRIZA-ANEL government and the Prime Minister are becoming the “best students” of NATO. They overbid the role of Greece in the framework of the Alliance, as it is proved by the expansion of the Souda base and the coverage, from the Greek side, of the enormous NATO’s expenditures. The goal of the “geostrategic upgrade” has to do with the Greek capital’s participation in the “prey” of the wars, while for the people it means huge dangers.
The developments require the intensification of the struggle for our country’s disengagement from NATO and the other imperialist organisations. No involvement in the war plans and interventions. Closure of the foreign military bases in Greece and return of the Greek soldiers who serve outside of the borders. Common struggle and people’s solidarity against the imperialist wars, the bourgeois classes and their warmongering policy for their own profits.”
European Communist Parties honored the Great Antifascist Peoples Victory in Berlin – Speech by the KKE Politburo Member Giorgos Marinos
worker | May 9, 2017 | 8:29 pm | Analysis, class struggle, Communist Party Greece (KKE), Fascist terrorism, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Ukraine, USSR | Comments closed

Tuesday, May 9, 2017

https://communismgr.blogspot.com/2017/05/european-communist-parties-honored.html

European Communist Parties honored the Great Antifascist Peoples Victory in Berlin – Speech by the KKE Politburo Member Giorgos Marinos

An important internationalist event was organized by the European Communist Initiative in Berlin on Sunday 7/5, with as its theme: «May 9, 72 years after the Great Antifascist Victory of the Peoples: we are inspired and continue the struggle against the distortion of history by the EU-capital. For the overthrow of the rotten capitalist system that creates crises, wars, fascism.”
 
The event was supported by the Party Organization of the KKE in Germany and Party Organization of the CP of Turkey in Germany. The programme of the event included interventions from the representatives of the CPs that participate in the “Initiative” and a concert with songs of the Red Army and other revolutionary songs.
The following 15 Parties participated in the event: Pole of Communist Revival in France, Communist Revolutionary Party of France, Communist Party of Greece, Workers’ Party of Ireland, Communist Party, Italy, Communist Party of the Peoples of Spain, Socialist Workers Party of Croatia, Belarusian Communist Party of Workers-Section of the CPSU, Communist Party of Norway, Hungarian Workers’ Party, Communist Party of Poland, Russian Communist Workers’ Party, Communist Party of Sweden, Communist Party of Turkey
A representative of the German CP also attended the event.
Below is the speech by the representative of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) and member of its Political Bureau, Giorgos Marinos:
Dear comrades,
From here, from Berlin, we salute the Victory of the Peoples against the fascist, imperialist monster in the 2nd World War, with the Soviet Union and the heroic Red Army as the protagonists.
 
The great country of socialism, the Soviet Union and the Red Army had the strength to repel the Nazi assault, to overcome the intrigues of US and British imperialism and contribute decisively to the victory of the peoples, liberating a large part of Europe, raising the red flag over the Reichstag, in the heart of Berlin on 30 April, leading to the surrender of Nazi Germany on May 9 of 1945.
 
It paid a heavy price for the victory. 20 million dead,10 million wounded and enormous material damage, in a war that cost the lives of 50 million people.

We honour the militant men and women who gave their lives, the thousands of martyrs of Dachau, Buchenwald and the other fascist concentration camps. We bow to the heroism of comrade Ernst Thalmann who was murdered in August 1944 by the Nazis.

We honour the liberation movements in every country, the struggle of the National Liberation Front (EAM) and the People’s Army (ELAS) in Greece.

The Communist and Workers Parties, and amongst them the KKE, acquired in very harsh conditions a leading role and emerged as the organizers, guides and heart and soul of the struggle of the peoples.

We are inspired and we intensify our struggles for the just cause of the working class, for socialism, we denounce anti-communism, we respond decisively to the anti-communist mechanisms of the European Union and the bourgeois governments, to every kind of bourgeois and opportunist historical revisionist, the dangerous organizations that equate communism with the fascist monster.

Whatever they do, they cannot diminish the role of the communists, of the class struggle, of the Soviet Union, of socialism in social progress. They cannot conceal that fascism is the child of capitalism and the struggle against it is consistent when it aims to abolish its root cause.

Comrades, 

The 2nd World War, just as the First (1914-1918), was born from the womb of the capitalist system and was a result of the sharpening of the inter-imperialist contradictions and antagonisms for the redivision of the world, the control of the markets. This has historically marked the exploitative system which is guilty of hundreds of other local and regional wars.

The quest for profits and the inter-imperialist competition over the natural resources and the energy pipelines are to be found behind the imperialist wars that are under way today in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Ukraine. The interests of the monopolies are to be found behind the flashpoints in many regions of the planet and the danger of a more general military conflict.
 
The USA, NATO, the EU are ruthless enemies of the peoples.

At the NATO Summit on the 25th of May in Brussels, new, very dangerous plans will be set in motion. The inter-capitalist competition with Russia and China is sharpening. Concern is not enough. The task of the communists is to reinforce the struggle against imperialist war, the emancipation of the working class by the bourgeois classes in every country and the preparation of the peoples with the direction of concentrating forces to eradicate the causes of imperialist wars and interventions.

War is the continuation of the anti-people political line with military means, is defined by the interests and goals of the bourgeois classes. The character of war in our era is imperialist. The revolutionary war to abolish the exploitation of man by man is just.

With the interests of the working class and popular strata as its criteria, the struggle for the defense of the borders, territorial integrity, is a part of the struggle for the overthrow of capital, of capitalism that creates wars, crises, poverty, unemployment, refugees.

Comrades,

Many heroic events are a source of inspiration of communists in order to strengthen the antimonopoly-anticapitalist struggle but the Great October Socialist Revolution, which celebrates its 100th anniversary this year, stands out.

The historic mission of the working class was realized in the October Revolution. The great strength of the class struggle was highlighted as the motor force of social development and the importance and decisive character of the vanguard role of the communist party for the victory of the revolution and socialist construction was demonstrated.

The October Socialist Revolution demonstrated that the exploitative capitalist system is not invincible, that the working class with its allies can construct a society without the exploitation of man by man, that socialism can eradicate unemployment and safeguard the right to work for all, to increase free time, to provide free, high quality education, health, sports, culture, to satisfy the people’s needs and to activate the people’s strength in the construction of the new society.

The counterrevolutions have painful consequences for the peoples.

The temporary defeat teaches us how dangerous the opportunist deviations and violations of the laws of socialist construction. The political power of the working class, the socialization of the means of production, central scientific planning and workers’-social control are absolute prerequisites for the construction of the new society.

The class struggle continues, historical progress does not stop.

Capitalism is in its highest, final stage. It has decayed and the character of our era expresses the necessity of the passage from the exploitative system to a superior system, socialism-communism, on the basis of the irrefutable conclusion that the material preconditions have matured for the new socialist organization of production and society.

The intermediate, the transitional stages, the so-called left governments operate within the framework of capitalism and perpetuate the power of the monopolies, the exploitation of the working class. Capitalism cannot be humanized.

Comrades,

The European Communist Initiative has spread its wings. Last year it organized the Anti-NATO event in Warsaw, this year we in Berlin we honour the Anti-fascist victory of the peoples and the forces of the “Communist Initiative” will take part in the mobilizations against the NATO Summit in Brussels. We combine these important events with the stable annual meetings, the regular and precise interventions on the problems of the workers and youth, more general serious political issues, supporting, developing, the ideological struggle against the bourgeois classes, the exploitative capitalist system, the EU, the inter-state imperialist union in Europe.

We will continue with this experience to fight against the difficulties, to contribute more to the development of the class struggle, to weaken opportunism, strengthening the efforts for the unity and revolutionary regroupment of the communist movement, the struggle for socialism.
Lack of Palestinian State ‘Unfair’ and a ‘Terrible Injustice’ – China
worker | April 14, 2017 | 5:37 pm | Analysis, Announcements, China, Iraq, Palestinian struggle for equality, political struggle | Comments closed
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi meets with  Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki, April 2017

Lack of Palestinian State ‘Unfair’ and a ‘Terrible Injustice’ – China

© AP Photo/ Mark Schiefelbein
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https://sputniknews.com/politics/201704141052656566-china-supports-independent-palestinian-state/

On Thursday, during the visit of Palestinian Foreign Affairs Minister Riyad al-Maliki to Beijing, China said it was a “terrible injustice” that Palestine still does not have its own independent state.

During a press conference with Maliki, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi reaffirmed Beijing’s support for a Palestinian state based on borders that existed before the Six-Day War in 1967, with a capital in East Jerusalem.

Wang said, “Seventy years later, what we see is that our Palestinian brothers have yet to establish an independent state with full sovereignty … This is unfair, and this terrible injustice must be addressed, and it cannot continue,” according to German media outlet DPA.

The pre-1967 borders have been called “indefensible” by Israel, though former US President Barack Obama and others have voiced their support for those demarcations.

Wang also said that Beijing supports the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, which seeks to normalize relations between Arab states and Israel and calls for Israel to be recognized as a state on the condition that Tel Aviv helps facilitate the creation of a Palestinian state by ceding its territorial control to the pre-war borders.

Beijing supports the two-state solution as well. Maliki agreed that this was the best course of action, saying that the “cornerstone of the fight against terrorism” would be the establishment of a Palestinian state.

He added, “We do encourage China to do more of this kind of approach, in order to see peace ultimately achieved in our region.”

Wang remarked, “Despite all the hotspot issues popping up in the Middle East, the issue of Palestine remains the central issue.” He pledged that Beijing would furnish more than $7 million in humanitarian aid to assist in the construction of a solar power station.

This support has not affected China’s relationship with Israel, however, as a new series of technology cooperation programs were established last month during a visit from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Before arriving in China Netanyahu’s office released a statement saying, “We will continue the talks on establishing a free trade agreement between China and Israel and we will hold the third joint Israel-China innovation conference. Of course we are continuing to develop new markets and to open new markets for the Israeli economy.”

U.S. aggression causes escalating tension on the Korean Peninsula – A view from Pyongyang
worker | April 10, 2017 | 8:17 pm | Afghanistan, Analysis, Donald Trump, DPRK, Iraq, Libya | Comments closed

Monday, April 10, 2017

U.S. aggression causes escalating tension on the Korean Peninsula – A view from Pyongyang

https://communismgr.blogspot.com/2017/04/us-aggression-causes-escalating-tension.html
By Kim Kwang Hak*.
Source: nknews.org.
 
Throughout the centuries the Korean Peninsula has been drawn to a vortex of the vicious cycle of the escalation of the tension year after year. 
 
There surely exists a problem on the Korean Peninsula, which has drawn the attentions and interests of the world and also made a number of politicians, policymakers and experts to argue over the “solutions” for some decades. 
 
The dominant viewpoint of the mostexperts on the Korean affairsis that the “the Korean Peninsula Issue is the North Korean Nuclear Issue” and the prospect of its solution seems vague like a “chicken and egg story”. They are “differentiating” the Korean Peninsula by asserting that there should never be nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula and the possession of the nuclear weapons by the DPRK invites more tension on the Korean Peninsula. 
In other words, those assertions are based on the logic that there is no problem with thousands of nuclear weapons and the delivery systems possessed by the existing nuclear powers andwith those deployed in the place where the nuclear powers have interests in, while the nuclear weapons possessed by the DPRK for the purpose of the self-defense should never be allowed. 
 
I have questions for those who look like setting great value on the “denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula”by “enthusiastically asserting” that “there should not benuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula under no circumstances”. 
 
Why are youturning blind eyes to the fact that the US frequently introduces the nuclear assets including the nuclear aircraft carriers, nuclear strategic bombers, nuclear submarines into the vicinity of the Korean Peninsula while not satisfied by the fact that they had already deployed more than 1,000 nuclear weapons of the various kinds in south Korea during the Cold War? 
 
Why are you keeping silence on the fact thatsouth Korea is under the “nuclear umbrella” provided by the US? 
 
Why could you not say a “flat No” to the US, the one which is most loudly talking about the keeping of the “nuclear non-proliferation system” and the observation of the international law, is turning the blind eye to the nuclear weapons and the test-fire of the ICBM of the countries in which the it had interests,and to the fact that the US committed the brutal armed aggression upon the countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, Libyain defiance of the international law? 
 
The calls of the US and some nuclear weapon states for the “denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula” are absolutely based on theirsinister aims and interests, far from defending of the peace and security on the Korean Peninsula. The problem with the Korean Peninsulahas nothing to do with the possession of the nuclear weapons by the DPRK. 
 
The problem with the Korean Peninsula is none other than the issue of the decades-long hostile policy towards the DPRK pursued by the US, the so-called “solesuperpower” and the biggest nuclear power, which drove a nonnuclear country to go nuclear in order to safeguard its sovereignty, dignity and the right to existence.   The US hostile policy towards the DPRK had been initiated since it never recognized the sovereignty of the DPRK from the very first days of its founding, and it had been further consolidated into the unprecedented political, economic and military pressures which had been lasting for more than half a century. 
 
In other words, it is the US, not the DPRK, whichtook first in pursuing the hostile policy, and that policy generated the Korean Peninsula Issue which was extended to the breakout of the nuclear issue. The “achievements” performed by the US on the Korean Peninsula, who likes to portray itself as the “Guardian of the world peace and stability”, are none other than the division of the territory, invitation of the irreparable misfortunes of the war, and making the Korean nation, an homogenous nation which shared the same blood and lead a harmonious life from the ancient times to be hostile against each other and engage in the fratricidal war. 
 
At the same time, the US had deployed number of nuclear weapons in south Korea and pursued the hostile policy by resorting to the constant nuclear blackmailing and threats, economic sanctions for the past several decades, thus it gravely threatened the sovereignty and right to existence of the DPRK constantly. 
 
The US pursued the hostile policy towards the DPRK, neither because the DPRK threatened the security of the US nor did a great deal of harm to it. The ridiculous “reasons” for the pursuit of that policy are the fact that the ideology and system of the DPRK differ from those of the US,and the DRPK does not obey the US and furthermore the DPRK could be an obstaclein realizing its strategy to dominate the Asian region. 
 
The US hostility towards the DPRK is not a simple hostility because it is based on the inveterate sense of rejectionto seek the criminal purpose of obliterating the DPRK by all means. The US hostility towards the DPRK has been pursued by the most vicious means, not by the simple means of sanctions or military threats; the US has completely blocked the air, ground and sea of the DPRK to stifle it and at the same time the US has posed a direct threat against it with thousands of nuclear weapons to directly threaten the right to existence. 
 
If you want to solve the problem, you should have a clear understanding of the root cause of it. The root cause of the escalation of the tension on the Korean Peninsula lies in the fact that the US has been pursuing the hostile policy towards the DRPK. The root cause of the nuclear issue on the Korean peninsula lies in the fact that the US gravely threatens the sovereignty and right to existence of the DPRK with the nuclear weapons by deploying them in south Korea. 
 
It is crystal clear that the DPRK could not afford to focus on developing its economy under the current situation where the biggest nuclear power is steeped in threatening and blackmailing the DPRK, of which population and the depth are not so great, by continuously introducing the nuclear assetsfor more than half a century. 
 
We can only expect the development and the future as long as we survive. It is preposterous to talk about the peace, development and prosperity under the grave situation where the right to existence is severely threatened. The powers, regarding that the nuclear weapons play an important role in achieving their political and military goals, abused the successes of the latest science and technology to develop the nuclear weapons and hastened the increase of their nuclear arsenal in quality and quantity in the past Even now, the nuclear weapons states justify their possession of the nuclear weapons by asserting that the defending of the domestic and international peace and stability and the prevention of the conflicts could be mainly ensured by the possession of the nuclear weapons. 
 
The purposes of the possession of the nuclear weapons can be divided into 2 kinds: 
 
One is to assume the hegemony by means of the nuclear blackmails and threats, while the other is to neutralize this kind of threats and to defend itself. The first one means the nuclear possession of the injustice and the second one can be interpreted as the one of justice. 
 
The DPRK had no ambition to go nuclear. It’s possession of the nuclear weapons can be interpreted as of the justice nature, because it had inevitably possessed the nuclear weapons in order to defend its right to existence and the sovereignty against the constant nuclear threats from the US. The DPRK had never threatened the world with the nuclear weapons, and moreover it had never practically used themlike the US. From the first, the DPRK’s standpoint was nonuclear and anti-nuclear. 
 
The DPRK came out with several proposals to create the nuclear free and peaceful zone on the Korean Peninsula and made sincere efforts to realize it, for example through the DPRK Government Statement dated June 23, 1986 and the DPRK MFA Statement dated July 30, 1991. In the past the DPRK tried to eliminate the ever increasing nuclear threats of the US through the means of negotiations and dialogues, and the international law. 
 
However, all these efforts were met by the open hostility and military threats from the US, including designation of the DPRK as the “axis of evil”, “rogue nation”, “outpost of tyranny” and“the target of the nuclear preemptive strikes” etc. All the efforts through the dialogues and international laws went to nothing and the DPRK had become more exposed to the biggest-ever nuclear threats of the nuclear superpower. Under this situation, the only option left for the DPRK was to resist the “nukes with nukes”. The nuclear deterrent forces of the DPRK are not the one of the injustice with which it wields them to threaten the others for no good reason. 
 
Furthermore, it is not the bargaining chip with which the DPRK intimidates someone in order to obtain the economic assistance, the respect for its system and guarantee for its security. The mighty nuclear deterrent forces of the DPRK are the nuclear treasured sword of justice with which the DPRK defends itssoveignty and right to existence of the people against the ever increasing hostile policy and nuclear threats of the US. The issue on the Korean Peninsula is the issueof the hostile policycaused by the anachronistic hostile policy and the nuclear threats of the US towards the DPRK, far from the “nuclear issue” of someone. The prospect of its solution depends on whether those kinds of policy could be withdrawn or not.  
 
 
The US hostile policy towards the DPRK is an extremely dangerous and unwarranted policy that completely undermines the right to existence of tens of millions of the Korean nation and further peace and security in the rest of the northeast Asian region and the world at large. Firstly, the US hostile policy against the DPRK is dreadfully unjust policy. There are a number of countries at hostile relationship worldwide due to the aftereffect of World Wars and international disputes. However, incomparably, the US hostility towards the DPRK derives from inveterate and deep-rooted sense of rejection of the other party. 
 
It is absurd that a variety of policy plans advanced by the successive administrations and policy research institutes of the United States are based on the common theory that the DPRK’s political system is “unstable and irrational”,  such an “irrational” State which dooms to collapse must be prevented from possessing the nuclear weapons. 
 
A couple of weeks ago, Tillerson, the US Secretary of State acknowledged that the US policy towards the DPRK of the last 20 years has failed while making an Asian tour including Japan and south Korea. The reason why the US policy on the DPRK has failed and will be doomed to fail is because it derives from the morbid sense of rejection that the DPRK should be obliterated by all possible coercive means as the DPRK’s lines of policy are illegal and the DPRK itself is a threat to international peace and security. 
 
Such a US’s inveterate sense of rejection of the DPRK, which is built on the perception that the latter is banned from doing anything others can do, has failed to offer successive US administrations little opportunity to map out a Korea policy based on a correct viewpoint and thereby, it rather drove the US to slip into a trap of its own. 
 
The US’s blatant hypocrisy is well vindicated by the its rejection of attending to the UN conference on negotiating a convention on prohibiting the nuclear weapons while touting much about preserving the non-proliferation regime and building a nuclear-free world, its connivance on pursuit of nuclear weapons and test-fires of intercontinental missiles by some other countries beyond expectation and others. 
 
A couple of days ago, the US ambassador to the UN argued that prohibition of nuclear weapons worldwide is unrealistic and use of nuclear weapons may be necessary for the sake of the security due to untrustworthy “bad actors”. It clearly proves the ulterior motive behind the US’s demand of nuclear abandonment. 
 
The US targets the DPRK’s survival and development itself beyond its nuclear weapons. Secondly, the US hostile policy towards the DPRK is an extremely risky policy. The nature of the US hostile policy against the DPRK is to obliteratepolitically, isolateeconomically and stifle by use of force the latter. 
 
The US has blatantly spitted out all sorts of wicked words against the DPRK such as “axis of evil”, “evil place”, “rogue nation”, “state sponsor of  terrorism” and etc., and it even took a president to make a blast about seeking a “regime collapse” of the DPRK through the means of “change”. Apart from sanctions subject to the UNSC’s resolutions, the US has imposed unilateral sanctions under dozens of domestic laws according to different reasons of “non-market oriented economy”, “engagement in proliferation of weapons of mass destruction” and etc. 
 
It also stands in the way of the DPRK’s economic development by following through all sorts of presidential executive orders. The US Congress has paid lip service to its expressed concerns about the Korean people’s “difficulties in life” and its call for “channeling fund into raising the living standard”. However, it has recently expanded the scope of sanctions to banning sales of foodstuff, agricultural products, textile and minerals irrelevant to the “development of weapons of mass destruction”. Worse still, it has sponsored “the Korea Interdiction and Modernization of Sanctions Act”. 
 
All in all, it lays bare to the American-style hypocrisy and deception. The US has committed massive strategic nuclear assets to south Korea and surrounding areas of the Korean peninsula; it poses the gravest threat ever on the DPRK by staging the so-called “annual” and “defensive” joint military exercises at the threshold of the DPRK. 
 
 
This is the height of the US hostile policy against the DPRK. The US has enlisted the most advanced nuclear war hardware it has at its disposal in the on-going exercises. Worse still, it is openly elaborating and conducting several operations; the “Decapitation Operation” targeting the supreme leadership of the DPRK, “Tweezers Operation” to blow up the nuclear and rocket bases of the DPRK, the “Offensive operation into the deeper inlands of the North” and the “Pyongyang Occupation Operation” to ensure the “regime collapse” of the DPRK, even the “High-precision strike exercises”to attack the offices of the supreme leadership of the DPRK. Moreover, the special mission units have been hurled into the exercises; the “DavGuru” (a.k.a.“Navy Seal” Team 6) known as “Warriors’ Unit using the occult art of transforming” which specializes in the “operations for removing the headquarters” and “Delta Force”, known as “detached force of the White House”, belonging to the joint special warfare headquarters. 
 
All these facts vividly show that the ultimate goal sought by the U.S. is none other than the “physical elimination” of the DPRK’s supreme headquarters. No country in the world would condone such attempt of eliminating its headquarters.  Much more is it the case with the people of the DPRK who regardtheir Leader as the whole of their lives and destiny. Any US attempt to “hurt and murder” the noble feelings of the people of the DPRK is bound to invite the toughestbacklash from all the service personnel and people of the DPRK. 
 
The world still remembers “ABLE ARCHER-83”, a nuclear preemptive strike exercise that NATO staged back in Nov. 1983 – an incident that could have invited a nuclear preemptive strike of theUSSR (then). Military insiders, at that time, rated that incident in 1983 more perilous than the “Crisis in the CaribbeanSea” in 1962, saying that if the “ABLE ARCHER-83”had been lasted for more 24 hours, the USSR would have unleashed a nuclear preemptive strike. 
 
Such hostile moves of US against the DPRK such as the nuclear blackmails and joint military exercises could invite a “nuclear Armageddon” which the world has never experienced before. In case a nuclear war breaks out on the Korean peninsula, the war would not be confined to the region alone; the entire Northeast Asia, North America and the whole world would be engulfed in a nuclear holocaust. 
 
According to an estimate, the outbreak of war on the Korean peninsula would bring 4 devastating calamities – an economic loss worth of $2billion, devastation of 500 mega-cities, and death toll of 1 billion people, and deserted of the whole world. The US hostile policy towards the DPRK is dreadfully unjust policy as it poses a grave threat not only to the peace and security on the Korean peninsula but also to the world at large. 
 
※ ※ ※ ※ ※ Some people are saying that the vicious cycle of the escalating tension on the Korean Peninsula is like“putting more noodles in case of much water and putting more water in case of many noodles”. The DPRK is bolstering up its nuclear arms to protect its sovereignty and right to existence; the US poses persistent nuclear threat and blackmail to the DPRK, the prime example of which are the large-scale joint military exercises, which are rooted out from the anachronistic hostile viewpoint on the DPRK. Putting these two facts on the same footing is nonsense. 
 
The DPRK is taking the measures of bolstering up its nuclear arms to cope with the nuclear threat and blackmail coming from the US and its vassal forces. All these measures are being taken on a routine basis in linewith the Byungjin policy, the national line, and have nothing to do further strain of tension. The more powerful the DPRK’s nuclear deterrence of the self-defensive nature become, the safer and more peaceful the Korean peninsula will be. 
 
The new U.S. administration should squarely recognize the strategic position of the DPRK, now that it has risen to the position of the nuclear power in the east, and the military giant; it should make a resolute decision to scrap its anachronistic hostile policy towards the DRPK, the root cause of the escalating tension on the Korean Peninsula. 
 
We will continue to build up our self-defense capability, the pivot of which is the nuclear forces, and the capability for preemptive strike as long as the United States and its vassal forces keep on nuclear threat and blackmail and as long as they do not stop their war games they stage at our doorstep disguising them as annual events.
 
* Researcher of the IFAS of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, DPRK.