A spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea on February 18 released a press statement “The anachronistic and futile attempt to challenge the inviolable sovereignty and the prestige of the DPRK will entail self-destructive results.”

The full text of the press statement is as follows:

Recently, the US revealed again its sinister intention to put extreme political and military pressure on the DPRK in collusion with its vassal states, while viciously taking issue with the DPRK’s just exercise of right to independence with the international security conference held in Munich of Germany as an occasion.

The US Secretary of State held a confab with the diplomatic authorities of Japan and the ROK on February 15 to fabricate and make public a “joint statement” full of groundless mud-slinging and provocative rhetoric against the DPRK, talking about the “complete denuclearization of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.”

The Foreign Ministry of the DPRK expresses serious concern over the adventuristic and foolish acts of the US, Japan and the ROK inciting collective confrontation and conflict on the Korean peninsula and in the region and strongly warns that any provocation and threat of the hostile countries will face an overwhelming and decisive counteraction.

The US is pursuing an outdated and absurd plan of “denuclearization,” which is now getting more impossible and unrealistic even practically and conceptually from the viewpoint of the present time. As for the shortsighted “goal” of the US, it is no more than the height of stupidity that arouses the astonishment of the world people as does the case of ignorant primitives asking the people in the modern age to return to their society.

The US is not yet awakened from the failed old dream of the “denuclearization” that dims in the memory of the present time. It is the official stand of the DPRK government that it is not worth consideration to counter the stand of the US escaping from reality and we condemn and reject the US action in the most resolute tone.

The US should have to think itself first of what consequences were followed today by the futile attempt of the imperialist forces to unilaterally hurt the security of the DPRK in disregard of the origin and the cause of existence of the nuclear issue on the Korean peninsula for more than three decades.

Explicitly speaking once again, as long as the US and its vassal forces’ hostile threat exists, the DPRK’s nukes are means for defending peace and sovereignty and a means for legitimate self-defence empowered by the Constitution of the DPRK.

The more desperately the US resorts to ineffective means of pressure against the DPRK, failing to face up to the reality, the more the DPRK will continue to take a new opportunity for the upward coordination of its strategic force and hold further favourable position in the conflicting structure between the DPRK and the US.

The DPRK will as ever consistently adhere to the new line of bolstering up the nuclear force clarified by the head of state and thoroughly deter the US and its vassal forces from the threat and blackmail of encroaching upon the sovereignty and security interests of the state by making use of all political and military tools in its hands and perfectly attain its strategic goal.

KCNA