NKorea threatens to up its nuclear ante at UN

It has threatened to strengthen its nuclear deterrent if US continues to conduct military exercises near its borders.

North Korea said it could strengthen its nuclear deterrent if the United States continues to conduct military exercises near its borders.

“As long as the US nuclear aircraft carriers sail around the seas of our country,our nuclear deterrent can never be abandoned,but should be strengthened further,” North Korea’s Vice Foreign Minister Pak Kil Yon said in a speech to the annual UN General Assembly session. “This is the lesson we have drawn.”

Pak compared the Korean Peninsula to the Middle East as a “chronic hot spot seriously affecting world peace and security.”

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Defending North Korea’s nuclear ambitions,Pak maintained that as “a responsible nuclear-weapon state,” Pyongyang is willing to join international nuclear nonproliferation efforts,but demanded “an equal footing with other nuclear-weapon states.”

Pak spoke on the closing day of the annual general debate which began last Thursday and reiterated some of his country’s previous positions.

In his speech,Pak mentioned the March 26 sinking of a South Korean naval vessel in which 46 sailors lost their lives,in the context of the state of armistice on the Korean Peninsula which he said means “neither war nor peace.”

He described reactions to the ship sinking as a “farce of the largest saber-rattling,buildup and threat of force waged on a massive scale” by the United States and South Korea.

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In May,a South Korea-led international panel of investigators concluded that a North Korean submarine torpedoed the ship. North Korea has denied its involvement in the incident. The UN Security Council adopted a presidential statement in July condemning the March sinking but without pointing the finger at North Korea.

While saying the truth of the ship sinking “is still under cover,” Pak advised South Korea “not to create tension” on the Korean Peninsula “by waging war exercises with outside forces and pursuing a confrontational approach,” but to “immediately embark” on inter-Korean dialogue.

The Vice Minister also questioned the United Nations’ role in its 65-year history,saying the General Assembly has been abused under “the signboard of human rights protection,” apparently referring to criticisms of Pyongyang’s human rights records.