North Korea Affirms Its Status As A Nuclear Weapons Country Cannot Be Changed

Kim Jong-un while reviewing North Korea's uranium enrichment facility. (Source: KCNA)

JAKARTA - North Korea's Permanent Representative to the United Nations insists its country's position as a nuclear weapons country cannot be changed, condemning the United States' "anakronistic" claim for denuclearization, state media reported Monday.

"The position of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea as a nuclear weapons state that has been permanently designated in the country's highest law and basis has become irreversible," said a statement by North Korea's Permanent Representative to the United Nations and international organizations in Vienna.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), an intergovernmental agency for nuclear cooperation, has no "law and moral justification" to interfere with what North Korea considers an "internal affair," the mission's press statement said.

IAEA Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi earlier this month called North Korea's nuclear development program a "real violation" of UN Security Council resolutions.

He said his agency remained "maintaining its increased readiness to play an important role in verifying the DPRK's nuclear program."

While criticizing the US push for denuclearization as a "provocative act" to interfere in its internal affairs, Pyongyang defended its nuclear weapons as "an inevitable choice" to protect the country from the US nuclear threat.

Monday's statement coincided with the launch of Freedom Edge 25, a joint military exercise held by the United States, South Korea, and Japan, off the coast of Jeju Island, South Korea. The joint exercise is scheduled to take place until September 19.

Yesterday, North Korea's Deputy Chairman of the Central Military Commission, Pak Jong Chon, said the joint exercise "suggested serious challenges to our country's security interests and major dangers that could undermine regional stability and increase military tensions," according to state media.

Pyongyang on Monday accused the United States of violating its own obligation to prevent nuclear proliferation "while more focused than anyone else on developing nuclear power."

"The US has taken extreme action in its nuclear threat over time and the US-led nuclear alliance is increasingly desperate in its confrontational steps," North Korean officials said on Monday.