The chief of the Foreign News Section of the Department of Press and Information of the DPRK Foreign Ministry on September 8 issued a press statement titled "We will continue to take practical measures to cope with the long-term nuclear confrontation with the US", which said:

Recently the US and the ROK held an "Extended Deterrence Strategy and Consultation Group" meeting and a "Nuclear Consultative Group simulation drill", revealing their intention to further strengthen the military conspiracy and nexus against the DPRK.

They conducted a confrontation conspiracy based on the nuclear war scenario and a "simulation drill" as its practical step, terming the DPRK's legitimate and reasonable measure for bolstering up its self-defence capabilities a "threat". This fact clearly shows the danger of the US’s "extended deterrence strategy" to the global peace and security.

The DPRK Foreign Ministry expresses serious concern over and bitterly denounces and rejects the reckless moves of the hostile forces which are disturbing the regional strategic stability and increasing the possibility of nuclear clash by openly attempting to make a nuclear attack on a sovereign state.

The essential source of ever-worsening security environment in the Korean peninsula and the region at present is just the US which is visualizing the nuclear threat to other sovereign countries while strengthening the military nexus with its vassal forces and cooking up the nuclear confrontation programmes one after another.

This year alone, the US revised its "nuclear weapons employment planning guidance" for the purpose of pursuing the unchallenged nuclear edge over other sovereign states. And it, together with the ROK, cooked up the "nuclear operations guidelines" and formulated that nuclear weapons are included in the "offer of extended deterrence" to Japan.

The US has also staged nuclear war drills in succession, including Iron Mace and Ulji Freedom Shield, to practically verify the plan for using nukes, while never disguising the fact that the DPRK is the target of its application.

It is a mockery of the DPRK and trickery against the international community that the US, which is constantly working out and updating war manuals focused on preemptive nuclear strike at the DPRK, talks about "denuclearization" and "dialogue".

The present situation, in which the US is persistently resorting to the attempt for using nukes against a sovereign state under the pretext of "deterrence", underscores the need for the DPRK to possess more strategic and fatal nuclear deterrent capable of thoroughly defending its sovereignty and security interests and rapidly raising the capability of control over the regional security situation.

The US’s nuclear threat and blackmail will be thoroughly deterred by the DPRK's more perfect and developed nuclear forces for self-defence.

The DPRK will strictly control and manage the security situation of the Korean peninsula, which is getting ever more intense due to the US and its followers' nuclear war hysteria, and continue to take practical measures to cope with the long-term nuclear confrontation with the US.

KCNA