Press Statement of DPRK Foreign Ministry Spokesperson

Pyongyang, July 11 (KCNA) -- A spokesman of the DPRK Foreign Ministry issued the following press statement on Saturday:

At the recent NATO summit, the U.S. and its vassal forces denounced the DPRK's exercise of its just sovereign right as a "threat", and more openly showed their intention for inter-camp confrontation through the NATO's arms buildup and the intensified military cooperation with their Asia-Pacific allies.

The U.S., Japan and the ROK had a separate confab, at which they talked about "complete denuclearization of the DPRK" and "response to cyber threat". And the secretary general of NATO expressed the intention to intensify NATO's interference in the affairs of the Asia-Pacific region, maliciously finding fault with the normal development of relations among sovereign states including the DPRK.

The U.S.-led NATO allies and their partners incited the confrontation throughout the NATO summit. This clearly proved that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is a war and confrontation body that goes against the international peace and security in all parts of the world, including the Asia-Pacific region and the European region, while pursuing exclusive geopolitical interests.

The Foreign Ministry of the DPRK expresses serious concern over the fact that the U.S. and its vassal allies are adding an element of instability to the international situation through massive arms buildup, while being so engrossed in the unfounded and malicious politically-motivated denunciation of sovereign states and the strengthening of a military bloc of aggressive nature, and strongly condemns and rejects it.

"The DPRK's denuclearization" is an agenda which reached an irreversible and final conclusion both theoretically and practically.

The U.S., Japan and the ROK's call for "denuclearization", which completely lost the timeliness and practical feasibility, can never affect the position of the DPRK, and the reality faced by the forces who have denied it for decades is a sufficient answer to this.

The concept of denuclearization should be applied on a priority basis to the attempts of Japan and the ROK to go nuclear by themselves in an extremely dangerous phase under the active patronage of the U.S. and to the ambition for nuclear confrontation of NATO member states sharing the U.S. nukes.

NATO is systematically exacerbating the security environment of Europe through the implementation of its reckless easternward advance policy and expansion of its support for the neo-Nazi forces to maintain illegal justification for its existence which should have been extinct with the end of the Cold War, and creating instability in the Asia-Pacific region by shifting its responsibility on to other countries. Its provocative moves can never be overlooked.

The reckless acts of the confrontation forces posing a destructive threat to the world security mechanical structure give a realistic justification to the renewal and expansion of the physical deterrent to confront them.

The DPRK will reliably defend the national sovereignty and security interests and the regional peace and stability by building up at an accelerated pace the strength capable of deterring the enemy countries' ever-increasing attempt for collective confrontation and their military threats and exercising its sovereignty in a responsible manner. -0-