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 Saturday:

Recently, the U.S. Department of State designated the DPRK as an "uncooperative state in combating terrorism" for the reason that the latter does not cooperate in the former’s "anti-terrorist efforts".

It is needless to comment on all such annually repeated habitual practices targeting the anti-U.S. independent states, but it is necessary to make our stand clear given that the U.S. talks about "cooperation" devoid of a sense of the reality, utterly ignorant of the current state of the DPRK-U.S. confrontation.

In conclusion, the DPRK and the U.S. are definitely in hostile relations, and it can be said there exists no field of cooperation between the DPRK and the U.S.

The U.S. "anti-terrorist efforts" are disguised encroachment upon sovereignty, which is aimed at interfering in the internal affairs of other countries and justifying its attempts to bring down their social systems and acts of aggression.

They have nothing to do with the genuine international efforts for the eradication of terrorism.

It is a universal truth that intensified "anti-terrorist efforts" of the U.S. give rise to the emergence of various terrorist groups and escalated vicious cycle of terrorist attacks and retaliation, far from defusing the danger of terrorism in different parts of the world.

That’s why the U.S. slogan of "anti-terrorism" is now being slandered and rejected by the international community and used internationally as an official term for characterizing Washington’s aggressive foreign policy.

The U.S. would be well advised to work hard to stop its junior ally in the Middle East in its reckless state-sponsored terrorism, rather than wasting its energy in its foolish act of branding other countries as "terrorist states" under the pretext of the "efforts against terrorism".

It is the consistent stand of the DPRK to resolutely oppose all forms of terrorism threatening international peace and stability.

But we remind the U.S. once again that we have neither intention nor interest in cooperation with the U.S. in its "efforts against terrorism" exclusively used as a tool for interference and aggression on other sovereign states.

The DPRK will continue taking necessary measures to disclose before the international community such interference and acts of aggression openly committed by the U.S. under the signboard of "cooperation in combating terrorism" and to thoroughly foil them.