The DPRK permanent mission of the UN Office and International Organizations in Vienna released the following press statement on September 14:

With a recent session of the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency as an opportunity, the U.S. again committed a grave political provocation, terming the DPRK’s access to nuclear weapons “illegal” and talking about “denuclearization”.

We strongly denounce and reject the U.S. provocative act of revealing once again its invariable hostile intention against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea while openly interfering in its internal affairs and infringing upon its sovereignty and express serious concern over the negative consequences to be entailed by it.

The U.S. repeated its anachronistic “denuclearization” assertion at the international meeting, clearly proving that the final goal of its policy towards the DPRK is to make the latter abandon its constitution and system and the U.S. has no intention to coexist with it.

The DPRK’s access to nuclear weapons plays a key and important role in guaranteeing global peace and stability as an inevitable option for reliably defending the sovereignty and security of the state from the U.S. persistent nuclear threat and ensuring the balance of strength.

In contrast with this, the U.S. endangers global peace and security and undermines the foundation of the international nuclear non-proliferation system through radical nuclear arms buildup and reckless nuclear proliferation. Such hegemony-seeking act of the U.S. is the most serious threat that the international community faces.

As for the world’s biggest nuclear weapons state, the U.S. should honestly fulfill its obligation for nuclear disarmament more than anybody else and immediately stop such worrying nuclear proliferation acts as “offering extended deterrence”, realizing nuclear sharing with non-nuclear states and transferring nuclear submarine technology.

We warn the IAEA for its attempt to call into question and deter the just exercise of the sovereign rights of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, losing its independence and impartiality and disregarding the realistic and practical U.S. nuclear threat.

The position of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea as a nuclear weapons state which has been permanently specified in the supreme and basic law of the state has become irreversible. The IAEA, which has not formally established relations with the DPRK for more than 30 years, has no legal right and moral justification to interfere in the internal affairs of a nuclear weapons state which exists outside the NPT.

If the IAEA is sincerely concerned about the international nuclear threat and the ever-worsening international security environment caused by it, it would be logical to call into question the malicious act of the U.S. which wantonly violates the obligation it has assumed before the international community to prevent nuclear proliferation while concentrating more than anyone else on nuclear power buildup.

The U.S. has gone to extremes in its nuclear threat as days go by and the U.S.-led nuclear alliance is getting desperate in its confrontational moves. To steadily bolster up the nuclear deterrent for self-defence to cope with this reality is the best option for preventing the danger of a nuclear war on the Korean peninsula and in the region and reliably guaranteeing the right to existence and development of our state.

We will as ever thoroughly oppose and reject any attempt to change the present position of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and faithfully discharge our duty before the international community as a responsible nuclear weapons state.