Arab News Japan

TOKYO: North Korea says that the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula demanded by the United States and others “is nothing more than an impossible delusion.”

Kim Yo-jung, deputy director of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea, issued a statement on Tuesday ridiculing the “anachronistic obsession of denuclearization of the United States, Japan and South Korea,” saying that the demand “will not have any impact on the status of our country.”

Directing a message to the United States, Kim said: “Continuing to talk about ‘complete denuclearization’ and wandering in the dreams of the past that have continued to fail is the same as exposing to the world how old-fashioned and insane your own level of political judgment is.”

Kim said North Korea’s status as a nuclear state was “permanently established by the consensus of all the Korean people in the Supreme Law of the State, the Basic Law. This is our unwavering choice that cannot be overturned by any physical force.”

He added that calls for denuclearization denied North Korea its sovereignty and pointed out that North Korea’s nuclear forces played “a central role in deterring external aggression and threats and were defending national sovereignty and security.”

He concluded by saying that the North’s nuclear defense was “based on the reality that the degree of nuclear threat of the United States has been maximized” and “the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea will continue to make responsible efforts to thoroughly protect the country’s best interests and ensure regional peace and stability.”