Kim’s speech follows escalating threats between North Korea and the United States, and increasingly tough U.N. sanctions.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Monday that his country is
curtailing economic, scientific and other ties with North Korea in line
with U.N. sanctions, and the European Union announced new sanctions on
Pyongyang for developing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Sunday that diplomatic
efforts aimed at resolving the North Korean crisis “will continue until
the first bomb drops.” His commitment to diplomacy came despite
President Donald Trump’s tweets several weeks ago that his chief envoy
was “wasting his time” trying to negotiate with North Korean leader Kim
Jong Un, whom he derisively referred to as “Little Rocket Man.”
North Korea’s deputy U.N. ambassador called his country’s nuclear and
missile arsenal “a precious strategic asset that cannot be reversed or
bartered for anything.”
“Unless the hostile policy and the nuclear threat of the U.S. is
thoroughly eradicated, we will never put our nuclear weapons and
ballistic rockets on the negotiating table under any circumstances,” Kim
said.
He told the disarmament committee that the Democratic People’s
Republic of Korea — North Korea’s official name — had hoped for a
nuclear-free world.
Instead, Kim said, all nuclear states are accelerating the
modernization of their weapons and “reviving a nuclear arms race
reminiscent of (the) Cold War era.” He noted that the nuclear weapon
states, including the United States, boycotted negotiations for the
Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons that was approved in July
by 122 countries at the United Nations.
“The DPRK consistently supports the total elimination of nuclear
weapons and the efforts for denuclearization of the entire world,” he
said. But as long as the United States rejects the treaty and
“constantly threatens and blackmails the DPRK with nuclear weapons … the
DPRK is not in position to accede to the treaty.”
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