Pyongyang, February 17 (KCNA) -- A spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) issued the following press statement on Friday:

In January the United States failed to hold an open meeting at the UN Security Council aimed to take issue with the DPRK's exercise of the right to self-defence. However, it coercively convoked a UNSC meeting again in disregard of the opposition from not a few member states.

This shows that the U.S. moves to turn the UNSC with heavy responsibility for the international peace and security into a tool for the U.S. illegal hostile policy toward the DPRK have gone to the extremes that can not be allowed any longer.

This year the DPRK has concentrated all its efforts on implementing its own development plans and keeping peace and stability in the Korean peninsula and the region. It refrains itself from any special military action, except the regular schedule for bolstering up the defence capabilities due to be taken by a sovereign state.

But, the U.S. and south Korea have resorted to the worrying military demonstration from the outset of the year to seriously encroach upon the security interests of the DPRK.

In January the U.S. secretary of Defence visited south Korea to call for the use of nuclear weapons against the DPRK and the deployment of more strategic assets in the Korean peninsula. After that, the U.S. and south Korea staged three rounds of combined air drills in the sky above the West Sea of Korea, with involvement of Stealth fighters and strategic bombers. Recently, the U.S., Japan and south Korea agreed to further strengthen their triangular military cooperation against the DPRK.

The U.S. and south Korea plan to stage more than 20 rounds of various joint military drills within this year and put their scale and scope on the level of the largest-ever field mobile tactical exercises. This predicts that the situation in the Korean peninsula and the region will be again plunged into the grave vortex of escalating tension.

The reality goes to clearly prove that the U.S. and south Korea are the arch criminals deliberately disrupting the peace and stability of the Korean peninsula and the region.

This being a hard fact, the UNSC is groundlessly pulling up the DPRK, which has maintained patience and self-control to defuse the tension in the Korean peninsula, and is showing no expression of concern, far from deterring the U.S. seeking to turn the Korean peninsula into a theatre of war exercises and a military base.

It is very regretful that the international community has not made any due voice against the unfair behavior of the U.S. wantonly violating the purpose and principle of the UN Charter which stipulates sovereignty equality, respect for sovereignty and non-interference.

The UNSC member nations should look back with cool mind on the worrisome high-handed and arbitrary practices of the U.S., which works hard to reduce the UN into a tool serving for its foreign policy, pulling up the DPRK over the right to self-defence, in connection with the guarantee of genuine global peace and security and the security interests of their countries and regions.

We give a serious warning and strongly denounce the fact that the UNSC put the just right to self-defence of a sovereign state only on the table of its discussion in favor of the U.S., oblivious of its main principle for justice and impartiality.

The UNSC, regarding the immoderate moves of the U.S. and south Korea aggravating the regional situation as a fait accompli without discerning between right and wrong, has taken issue with the DPRK's exercise of its just and legitimate right to self-defence to deter such moves. This is an open expression of ignorance and infringement upon the sovereignty of the DPRK, and a hostile act that the DPRK is bound to take due counteraction.

The DPRK should have to make reactions since the U.S. and south Korea openly revealed their dangerous attempt to gain a long-term military edge in the Korean peninsula and the region.

If the UNSC continues to be inveigled by the U.S. as the latter wishes, the DPRK will be compelled to reconsider measures for additional actions, to say nothing of the category of normal military activities, in protest against the UNSC which is being reduced into a tool for the U.S. unilateral pressure on the DPRK.

If it is the U.S. option to show its muscle and counter everything with muscle, the same is true of the DPRK's option.

In case the U.S. and south Korea carry into practice their already-announced plan for military drills which the DPRK, with just apprehension and reason, regards as preparations for an aggression war, they will face unprecedentedly persistent and strong counteractions. -0-

www.kcna.kp (Juche112.2.17.)