Seoul, Oct 4 (EFE).- North Korea came down heavily on the United States on Wednesday after a Pentagon report labeled Pyongyang as a “persistent” threat due to its possession of weapons of mass destruction.
The North Korean defense ministry said the US and its policies were rather the greatest risks for other countries.
The remarks came in response to the Pentagon’s “2023 Strategy for Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction,” which identified China and Russia as “the principal WMD challenges” and North Korea, Iran, and violent extremist organizations as “persistent regional threats.”
The North Korean defense ministry described the US report as “another grave military and political provocation against independent sovereign states.”
“As for the ‘persistent threat,’ it is an expression most suitable for the US, the world’s biggest WMD-armed state and the only criminal state that used A-bombs,” the ministry said in a statement carried by the official Korea Central News Agency (KCNA).
The statement pointed out that the US has consistently labeled North Korea as an “enemy” and has engaged in unprecedented nuclear threats and blackmail since the last century.
It accused the US of activating a “conspiratorial mechanism for a nuclear attack” and adopting a policy of using atomic weapons against North Korea.
“The reckless moves of the US, which brought even a strategic nuclear submarine, equipped with nuclear warheads large enough to totally destroy one state, to the vicinity of the Korean peninsula, constitute the most serious WMD threat to destroy the whole world.”
The US report, updated for the first time in a decade last week, also noted that the North Korean regime enacted a law in 2022 reaffirming its self-proclaimed status as a atomic power and establishing conditions for nuclear use, implying a rejection of any denuclearization process.
On Wednesday, the South Korean government reiterated that North Korea poses a significant threat that could undermine peace and stability. EFE
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