DPRK won’t abandon nuke tests, says foreign minister

August 7, 2017

North Korea said on Monday it will not abandon its nuclear program and missile tests as it warned to use these weapons to countries, which will join the United States' military action against Pyongyang.

In a statement issued in Manila, Foreign Minister Ri Yong-Ho of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea defended its nuclear program, saying it is a "war deterrence" against US.

"Where there is oppression, there is resistance...likewise, where there is nuclear threat, there is bound to be nuclear deterrence.Our nuclear force is a war deterrence to put an end to the nuclear threat of the US and prevent the military invasion of the US," he said.

He said DPRK is the only country in the world which is "transparent" in developing and completing the nukes and rockets.

"We have no intention to use nuclear weapons or threaten with nuclear weapons against any other country except the US, unless it joins military action of the US against the DPRK," Ri said.

"To our people who experienced disastrous disturbances of war on the Korean Peninsula by the US, the powerful war deterrence for national defense is an inevitable strategic option and it is a precious strategic asset that can neither be reversed nor bartered for anything," he said.

"We will, under no circumstances, put the nukes and ballistic rockets on negotiating table. Neither shall we flinch even an inch from the road to bolstering up the nuclear forces chosen by ourselves, unless the hostile policy and nuclear thereat of the US against the DPRK are fundamentally eliminated."

The UN Security Council recently issued resolutions providing more sanctions against North Korea due to the recent testing of intercontinental ballistic missiles and two nuclear tests in 2016.

Ri slammed US for "fabricating" a new "sanctions resolution" against DPRK in the UN Security Council.

He warned that should the US use military force against DPRK, Pyongyang "is ready to teach the US a severe lesson with its nuclear strategic force it has so far shown in detail."

The DPRK foreign minister also hit Japan and South Korea for "kowtowing blindly" to the US.

"Several Ministers of Foreign Affairs here are experiencing concern about the situation of the Korean peninsula, but those countries that are unable or fail to take issue with the US hostile policy and nuclear threat towards DPRK, the root cause of the problem, are not qualified morally to talk about the nuclear issue of the Korean Peninsula," he said.

"I will not take trouble to mention on the Japanese and South Korean authorities who regard kowtowing blindly to the US as their mode of existence," he stressed.

Japan Foreign Minister Taro Kono earlier said that this is not the time for dialogue insofar as the Korean Peninsula situation is concerned, "but time to increase effective pressure" on DPRK so that it would take action toward denuclearization.

Prior to his attendance to the ASEAN Foreign Ministers' Meeting and Related Meetings in Manila, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson wanted North Korea to be further isolated. Celerina Monte/DMS