A spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea issued the following press statement titled “G7, the US-led nuclear criminal group, should completely abandon its anachronistic ambition for nuclear hegemony” on March 16:

At the G7 foreign ministerial meeting recently held in Canada, the US and other Western countries perpetrated a political provocation of talking about the DPRK’s “abandonment of nukes,” while picking on it over its exercise of the just and legitimate sovereign rights.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the DPRK expresses serious concern over the fact that the member states of G7, the chief criminals wrecking the global peace and security and the international nuclear non-proliferation system, are taking issue with the possession of the just war deterrent of the sovereign state just like a guilty party filing the suit first, and clarifies that it will never tolerate any encroachment upon the sovereignty and internal affairs of the DPRK.

It is just the member states of G7 that regard nuclear weapons as the main means for serving their aggressive and hegemony-seeking political and military purposes and that are hell-bent on illegal and malicious nuclear proliferation act under the pretext of “nuclear sharing” and “offer of extended deterrent.”

It is an irrefutably well-known fact that the US, the only state that used nuclear weapons in the world, is a typical entity of nuclear threats that brings the crisis of nuclear conflict to the Korean peninsula, Europe and different other parts of the world through unlimited nuclear arms buildup and reckless nuclear war drills and the world’s top proliferator of nuclear weapons.

The UK, not content with its nuclear weapons, is openly attempting to introduce again the US’ nukes and taking the lead in transferring nuclear submarine technology to a non-nuclear weapons state, and the American nukes are deployed in Germany and Italy.

Meanwhile, France is fostering another worrisome possibility of nuclear proliferation in Western Europe, talking about the “offer of nuclear umbrella” to the regional countries, and Japan has been provided with the “extended deterrent” including nuclear weapons by the US, thus raising the relationship of security and cooperation with the latter to the one of nuclear alliance.

All facts show that G7 consisting of the US and its vassal allies is just the root cause of the outbreak and aggravation of the international nuclear crisis and that the “complete and irreversible abandonment of nukes” should be started from G7.

The group, which has turned into a nuclear criminal group gravely threatening the global peace and security, should totally abandon its anachronistic ambition for nuclear hegemony before talking about someone’s “denuclearization” and “nuclear abandonment.”

The DPRK’s position as a nuclear weapons state which has been fixed permanently by the supreme law of the state will not change according to whether it is recognized or not by anyone, and its nuclear armed forces will exist forever as a just and powerful means for defending the sovereignty, territorial integrity and fundamental interests of the state, preventing a war in the Korean peninsula and Northeast Asia and guaranteeing the strategic stability of the world.

The DPRK will steadily update and strengthen its nuclear armed forces both in quality and quantity in response to the nuclear threat from outside as stipulated in its Constitution and other domestic laws and reliably defend the peace and security of the state, the region and the rest of the world as a responsible nuclear weapons state.

KCNA