Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Kim Jong-un stressed the need to "remove confrontation" between the two Koreas 
 
 The North Korean leader has delivered a new year's message on state TV, the first such broadcast for 19 years. 
 
 Kim Jong-un, in power since 2011, spoke of the need to improve the economy and also to reunify the Koreas, warning that confrontation only led to war. 
 
 The speech came less than a month after the conservative Park Geun-hye was elected president of South Korea. 
 
 In 1994, Mr Kim's grandfather, Kim Il-sung, spoke on radio and TV. His son, Kim Jong-il rarely spoke in public. 
 
 In addition to Mr Kim's televised address, new year's messages were issued in the form of a joint editorial by North Korea's three main newspapers. 
 
 Musical performance 
 
 Kim Jong-un said 2013 would be a year of creations and changes, calling for a "radical turnabout" that would transform the impoverished, isolated state into an "economic giant" and raise living standards. 
 
 Analysis After a year of rocket launches and international isolation, the new year speech seemed to refocus North Korea's sights on the economy. There were the usual tributes to military strength, but less open hostility than in some previous speeches. Instead the focus was a call by the North Korean leader for the country to become "an economic giant". It was, he said, the "most important task… in the present stage of building a thriving socialist economy". Pyongyang has become increasingly isolated internationally over the past few years, and has become heavily reliant on China for its economic survival. With a new president due to take office in South Korea next month, some analysts saw signs of conciliation. President-elect Park Geun-hye has said she wants to rebuild trust, and - eventually - economic and diplomatic contacts with the North. In the new year speech, her counterpart in Pyongyang called for an end to confrontation between the North and the South, and for both sides to "respect... and implement" previously-agreed declarations. Many in the South - and in Washington - will want to see concrete evidence of Pyongyang's willingness to do that. 
 
 But while he said confrontation between the North and the South should be removed, Mr Kim stressed that military power remained a national priority. 
 
 "The military might of a country represents its national strength. Only when it builds up its military might in every way can it develop into a thriving country," he said. 
 
 The message coincides with UN Security Council discussions on how to punish Pyongyang for a recent long-range rocket launch. 
 
 Under Mr Kim's leadership, North Korea has conducted two long-range rocket launches - actions condemned by the US and Pyongyang's neighbours as banned tests of missile technology. 
 
 The launch in April failed, but December's attempt appears to have been a success, placing a satellite into orbit. 
 
 The US, Japan and South Korea are seeking a response in the UN Security Council, which banned North Korea from missile tests after nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009. 
 
 Kim Jong-un saw in the new year by watching a musical performance with his wife, North Korean state media reported. ||||| In this Friday, Dec. 21, 2012 image made from video, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un speaks at a banquet for rocket scientists in Pyongyang, North Korea. (AP) 
 
 In a domestically televised New Year’s Day speech, North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong Eun said he wants to “remove confrontation” on this divided peninsula and called on “anti- 
 
 reunification forces” in South Korea to end their hostility toward the North. 
 
 The lengthy address, which laid out North Korea’s goals for the year, marked Kim’s first formal remarks since the election two weeks ago of Park Geun-hye as South Korea’s next president. 
 
 The North Korean leader asked for a detente — but with prerequisites that the conservative Park is likely to be reluctant to accept. Both sides, Kim said, must implement joint agreements signed years ago by the North and liberal, pro-engagement presidents in Seoul. Those agreements call for, among other things, economic cooperation, high-level government dialogue and the creation of a special “cooperation” zone in the Yellow Sea, where the North and South spar over a maritime border. 
 
 Park, who takes office next month, has said that she will resume humanitarian exchanges and small-scale economic projects with the North — efforts that were shuttered under outgoing hard- 
 
 liner Lee Myung-bak. But Park has pledged to hold off on major economic cooperation unless the North disassembles its nuclear weapons program, something Pyongyang says it will never do. 
 
 With his speech Tuesday, Kim reinforced his image as a far more outgoing leader than his father, Kim Jong Il, who ruled for 17 years and addressed North Korean citizens only once, with a ­seconds-long exhortation at a military parade. During Kim Jong Il’s tenure, the New Year’s message was delivered in a lengthy editorial carried by the state-run newspapers. 
 
 1 of 35 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad × Images from around the world View Photos Take a look at some of the week’s best photographs from around the globe. Caption Take a look at some of the week’s best photographs from around the globe. Jan. 5, 2013 With temperatures around 46 degrees, a man plays in the surf with some thousands celebrating the new year by jumping into the North Sea in Ostend, Belgium. Geert Vanden Wijngaert/AP Buy Photo Wait 1 second to continue. 
 
 The previous Jan. 1 speech was given by North Korea’s founder, Kim Il Sung, in 1994, months before his death. 
 
 Whether spoken or written, the New Year’s messages are scrutinized by outside analysts for hints about policymaking in the family-run police state. On Tuesday, Kim emphasized many staple themes of the country’s daily propaganda: He spoke about economic improvement but did not mention the North’s destitution and food shortages. He called for a “dynamic struggle to boost production” but gave no clear sign that the government would change its spending priorities — its military and weapons programs. 
 
 Kim also portrayed a successful satellite launch last month as an event that would inspire North Korea’s citizens to work harder to boost the economy. Washington and its allies say the launch was a de facto test of an intercontinental ballistic missile and defied U.N. Security Council resolutions. 
 
 “Let us bring about a radical turn in the building of an economic giant with the same spirit and mettle as were displayed in conquering space,” Kim said, enunciating what he said was the Workers’ Party slogan for 2013. 
 
 His speech had no mention of the United States or the North’s nuclear weapons program.
– North Korean leader Kim Jong Un appears to share his father's fondness for rockets—but not his aversion to public speaking. Kim spoke to North Korea in a televised New Year's Day address, the first such broadcast in 19 years, the BBC reports. Kim Jong Il almost never addressed the public, and the last such New Year's broadcast in Pyongyang was from Kim's grandfather, Kim Il Sung, in 1994. In the address, Kim called for a "radical turnabout" that would transform North Korea into an "economic giant." He called for unity between North and South Korea, although he referred to agreements signed years ago that new South Korean leader Park Geun Hye may be reluctant to implement, the Washington Post reports. He stressed that military power remains a top national priority. "The military might of a country represents its national strength," he said. "Only when it builds up its military might in every way can it develop into a thriving country."