TNAG-0115-FCO40-151-Departmental-briefs-for-Commonwealth-Prime-Minister-s-and-ot-1969 — Page 71

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and disturbance.

All these attempts had

failed, however, because of the effective

measures taken by the South Korean

Government and because the people in the

But there was

South were anti-Communist.

no sign of any change in the tough policy

of North Korea. This was primarily

due to internal problems. The

intention of the North Koreans in shooting

down the United States plane on 15 April

was partly to show that it possessed

sufficient military strength to repel

U.S. reconnaissance activities and

partly to damage the prestige of "United

States imperialism". At the same time

there was a need, arising out of the

domestic situation, to maintain a state

of tension designed to strengthen the

regime of Kim Il Sung. In the Japanese

view, this incident and the earlier

ما

Pueblo incident, had strengthened Tim's

confidence.

38. Japanese relations with the Republic

of Korea had been greatly strengthened

since the normalisation of relations in

1965, particularly in trade and economic

cooperation. There were differences of

view,e.g,, over the repatriation of North

Koreans from Japan to North Korea and the

granting of permission to residents of

Japan to return there after visiting North

/korea

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