PYONGYANG, North Korea, Jan. 14 (UPI) -- North Korean leader Kim Jong Il spoke of self-reliance after calling on the incoming U.S. administration to normalize relations between the two countries.
Kim visited two machinery plants as part of his stepped-up economic drive to rebuild North Korea's industrial infrastructure and address its food shortages, South Korea's Yonhap News Agency reported Wednesday.
The reclusive leader said at one stop he believed plant workers would "invent and produce more modern farm machines invariably under the uplifted banner of self-reliance and realize the comprehensive mechanization of agriculture as early as possible," North Korea's news agency reported.
Concerning U.S. President-elect President Barack Obama, North Korea said it would refuse to cede its nuclear pursuits until Washington normalizes diplomatic relations with the communist country, Yonhap said. Leaders in Pyongyang, North Korea's capital, also called on the United States to remove it nuclear shield over South Korea, maintained since the Korean War.
"When the U.S. nuclear threat is removed and South Korea is cleared of its nuclear umbrella, we will also feel no need to keep nuclear weapons," a spokesman for North Korea's Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.
