Three days after a joint statement calling for North Korea’s complete denuclearization was issued at the South Korea-U.S.-Japan foreign ministers’ meeting, North Korea responded on Tuesday, stating that the countries “have failed to wake up from the failed dream of denuclearization.”
North Korean media, including Rodong Sinmun, published a statement from the country’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, asserting that “North Korea’s denuclearization is impossible and unrealistic.” The spokesperson also expressed “serious concern over the reckless adventurism of the U.S., Japan, and South Korea, which incites collective confrontation and conflict on the Korean Peninsula and in the region.” Denouncing denuclearization as a “short-sighted goal of the United States,” the spokesperson further criticized it as “the height of foolishness, akin to primitive people pleading with modern humans to return to the Stone Age, evoking shock and astonishment from the world.”
The spokesperson declared that “North Korea’s official position is that there is no value in responding to the U.S.’s escapist stance, which remains trapped in the failed dream of denuclearization” and emphasized that “as long as the hostile threats from the U.S. and its followers persist, nuclear weapons will remain synonymous with peace, sovereignty, and a legitimate self-defense measure granted by the national constitution.”
Hong Min, a senior researcher at the Korea Institute for National Unification, commented, “North Korea has escalated its response by issuing an official stance following statements calling for its complete denuclearization. Depending on the sensitivity of future remarks by the U.S. administration regarding North Korea’s nuclear program, Pyongyang may further intensify its rhetoric and take an even more aggressive approach.”
Earlier, the foreign ministers of South Korea, the United States, and Japan released a statement on Saturday reaffirming their strong commitment to North Korea’s complete denuclearization by United Nations Security Council resolutions.