North Korea on Sunday declared that the issue of denuclearization has been settled permanently and cannot be reversed, criticizing recent discussions between the United States and South Korea that reaffirmed their commitment to eliminating Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program.
In remarks carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency, an unnamed spokesperson for North Korea’s Foreign Ministry dismissed calls for denuclearization as unrealistic and detached from reality.
“It is an unreasonable talk and fantastic daydream to mention about disarming the other belligerent party’s nuclear weapons,” the spokesperson said.
The statement came in response to Thursday’s meeting of the U.S.-South Korea Nuclear Consultative Group, where both allies reiterated their shared objective of achieving the denuclearization of North Korea.
Condemning the outcome of the meeting, the spokesperson asserted that continued cooperation between Washington and Seoul on nuclear deterrence would have no impact on North Korea’s status as a nuclear-armed state.
“The US and its vassal forces’ meaningless rhetoric against the DPRK (North Korea) and cooperation in posing a nuclear threat to it can never affect the irreversible position of the DPRK as a nuclear weapons state,” said the spokesperson. “The ‘denuclearization’ is an irreversibly finalized matter.”
Pyongyang also criticized last week’s Extended Deterrence Dialogue between the United States and Japan, during which both countries reaffirmed their commitment to the “complete denuclearization” of North Korea.
Rejecting the stance taken by Washington, Tokyo and Seoul, the spokesperson insisted that no amount of diplomatic pressure or coordinated messaging would alter North Korea’s nuclear status.
“No matter how hard the US, Japan and the ROK may quibble, they will never change the present position of the DPRK as a nuclear weapons state,” said the spokesperson, referring to South Korea by the acronym of its official name, the Republic of Korea.
