North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui defended Pyongyang’s nuclear arsenal as a right to self-defense, rejecting renewed denuclearization calls, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported Thursday, according to The Korea Herald.
Choe said North Korea’s nuclear status should not be debated by Western governments. She called the weapons her country’s “most powerful guarantee” of national sovereignty and dismissed denuclearization as “impossible theoretically and practically.”
The Korea Herald reported that the G7 foreign ministers’ meeting in France preceded Choe’s statement and that the ministers called for Pyongyang to end its nuclear weapons program completely.
Choe blamed the United States and Britain for expanding the reach of military nuclear technology, which she said endangered global security. She accused Japan of seeking nuclear arms and charged the G7 with double standards and weakening regional and global security.
The remarks echo Pyongyang’s earlier rejection of sanctions pressure over its claimed nuclear-weapons status.
