According to official media KCNA, North Korea would “continue legitimate action” to retain its nuclear weapons position until war threats from the US and its allies are lifted.
North Korea’s foreign minister, Choe Son Hui, attacked the US and the other members of the Group of Seven during a news conference. At the end of their meeting in Japan on Tuesday, the Group of Seven foreign ministers forcefully called for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and condemned Pyongyang’s April 13 launch of a solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile.
Tensions have recently risen as the US and South Korea perform their annual spring military exercises, and the isolated country has boosted military activities and warned of “more practical and offensive” actions.
North Korea has reacted strongly to these exercises, calling them a rehearsal for “all-out nuclear war.”
Choe said that North Korea’s nuclear status is “final and irreversible,” describing it as an “undeniable reality” that cannot be rejected no matter how much Washington and other Western nations try.
She emphasized that the North’s nuclear program was purely defensive and that the US should end its “hostile policy” if it respected its own security.
“It is an anachronistic idea to believe that only Washington has the right and capability to carry out a nuclear strike,” she was quoted as saying by KCNA.
We don’t require foreign confirmation as long as we can react decisively to nuclear threats from the United States.
Choe said that the G7 countries’ demands for disarmament were an illegal intervention into North Korean internal matters and that Pyongyang would sternly react to any attempt to undermine North Korean sovereignty or basic interests.
“We will continue all legitimate action granted to any sovereign state until military threats from the United States and its allied hostile forces are completely eliminated, and the hostile environment that fundamentally impedes our independent existence and development is terminated,” Choe said.
