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 February 24.

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-defense.

We are very displeased with the fact that they put a sovereign state’s legitimate right to self-defense 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 on the Korean peninsula, it will have to condemn in the strongest terms the U.S. and south Korea for their moves of escalating military tension, including frequent deployment of strategic assets and large-scale joint military drills against the DPRK.

The U.S. and south Korea are planning to stage a farce of visiting a U.S. nuclear submarine base just after staging a “drill for operating extended deterrence means”, rehearsal of a nuclear war against the DPRK, at Pentagon. This clearly proves to what extent their scheme to confront with the DPRK has reached.

If the UNSC, the mandate of which is to ensure global peace and security, is turned into a three-ring circus where injustice and illegality now judge justice and legitimacy under the sway of the U.S. and its vassal forces, it will only result in escalating military tension on the Korean peninsula.

Against this backdrop, the U.S. representative to the UN contended that they would again push forward the adoption of a “Chair’s Statement” at the UN Security Council in denunciation of the DPRK’s ICBM launching drill. It is a clear encroachment upon the DPRK’s right to self-defense.

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

The U.S., posing a constant threat to the security environment on the Korean peninsula and in the region, has unilaterally denied the DPRK’s right to self-defense while striving to strengthen the alliance with its followers. This is an open disregard of and intolerable challenge to the DPRK.

The right to self-defense precisely means sovereignty.

Since the U.S. persists in its attempt to deprive the DPRK of its right to self-defense by misusing the UNSC, the DPRK will never remain a passive onlooker to such attempt.

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

The U.S. should be mindful of the fact 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, as a matter of course.

I take this opportunity to remind the UNSC once again of our stand that if it puts the DPRK’s right to self-defense on the table again, being at the U.S.’s beck and call, the corresponding strong countermeasure will follow.