Pyongyang, February 24 (KCNA) -- Kwon Jong Gun, director general of the Department of U.S. Affairs of the Foreign Ministry of the DPRK, issued the following press statement on Friday:

The U.S. and its followers held an open meeting of the UN Security Council on February 20 at which they again took issue with the DPRK over its exercise of the right to self-defence.

We are very displeased with the fact that they put a sovereign state's legitimate right to self-defence on the agenda of the UNSC and strongly protest and denounce them.

If the UNSC has a true intention to contribute to peace and security in the Korean peninsula, it will have to bitterly condemn the U.S. and south Korea for their moves of escalating military tension such as frequent deployment of strategic assets and large-scale joint military drills against the DPRK.

The U.S. and south Korea are planning to visit a U.S. nuclear submarine base in the wake of staging a "drill for operating extended deterrence means", a nuclear war demonstration against the DPRK, at Pentagon. This clearly proves what phase their attempt to confront with the DPRK has reached.

If the UNSC, the duty of which is to ensure global peace and security, is twisted round fingers of the U.S. and its vassal forces and serves as a theatre where injustice judges justice and illegal ones judge legitimate ones as now, it will only bring about a negative result of further escalating military tension in the Korean peninsula.

Against this backdrop, the U.S. representative at the UN claimed that he would again push forward the adoption of the "presidential statement" denouncing the DPRK's ICBM launching drill at the UN Security Council. This is a clear encroachment on the DPRK's right to self-defence.

This clearly proves that the UNSC has been reducing to a tool of the U.S. for putting pressure on the DPRK.

The U.S. constantly threatening the security environment on the Korean peninsula and in the region is trying to unilaterally deny the DPRK's right to self-defence while attempting to tighten alliance with former's followers. This is an open disregard and unpardonable challenge to the DPRK.

The right to self-defence precisely means sovereignty.

As long as the U.S. is persistently seeking its attempt to deprive the DPRK of the right to self-defence by putting the UNSC into limelight, the latter will never remain a passive onlooker.

The only way for preventing the vicious cycle of escalating military tension in the Korean peninsula and its surrounding area is for the U.S. to show a clear and practical stand such as abandonment of its commitment to deploying strategic assets in south Korea and halt to the combined drills against the DPRK under various codenames.

The U.S. should bear in mind that if it persists in its hostile and provocative practices against the DPRK despite the latter's repeated protest and warning, it can be regarded as a declaration of war against the DPRK.

The U.S. should perceive intuitively and accept the consequences to be entailed by it.

Availing ourselves of this opportunity, we remind the UNSC once again of our stand that if it puts the DPRK's right to self-defence on the table again, being led by the U.S., the corresponding strong countermeasure will be taken. -0-

www.kcna.kp (Juche112.2.24.)