N. Korea blasts reunification offer as 'psychopath's daydream'

North Korea today blasted South Korean President Park Geun-Hye's proposal on laying the groundwork for reunification through economic exchanges and humanitarian aid as the "daydream of a psychopath".
The blistering attack from the North's powerful National Defence Commission (NDC) was the first official reaction from Pyongyang to a proposal Park made in a speech last month in Dresden in the former East Germany.
She urged the North to expand reunions of families separated by the division of Korea and increase cross-border economic and cultural exchanges, starting with the South bolstering humanitarian aid.
"Germany's unity is for us an example and model for a peaceful reunification," she had said.

An NDC spokesman noted that German reunification came about with the West absorbing the East and accused Park of begging foreign countries to help a reunification in which South Korea absorbed the North.
"This is merely a daydream of psychopath", he said, denouncing Park's proposal, billed as the "Dresden Declaration" by Seoul, as "nonsense" full of "hypocrisy and deception".

"The fact that in that particular place, Park Geun-Hye lashed her tongue about reunification gave away her sinister mind", he said in a statement carried out by Pyongyang's state media.
Reunification is however enshrined as a national priority in both the South and North Korean constitutions, but pro-merger sentiment in the prosperous South has waned considerably in recent years.

The North Korean spokesman urged Seoul to abide by earlier agreements including a landmark agreement signed in 2000, stressing all these previous accords gave priority to addressing the issue of easing military confrontation.
Tensions on the Korean peninsula remain high since the South launched annual military exercises with the United States in February, described by Pyongyang as a rehearsal for an invasion against the North.
In a pointed protest at the exercises, Pyongyang carried out a series of rocket and missile launches, capped by its first mid-range missile test since 2009 on March 26.