DPRK FOREIGN MINISTRY BLASTS UNSC'S PRESS STATEMENT CRITICAL OF ITS LAUNCH OF SHORT-RANGE MISSILES

Pyongyang, July 19 (KCNA) -- The UN Security Council at its informal consultative meeting held on July 17 staged a farce of publishing a press statement terming the DPRK's launch of even short-range missiles a "violation of its resolutions."

The Foreign Ministry of the DPRK in a statement on Saturday said all the military measures taken by the Korean People's Army including tactical rocket firing are an exercise of the right to self-defence to protect the sovereignty of the country and the security of the nation from the U.S. nuclear threats and moves for aggression from A to Z.

This year the DPRK made a series of positive peace proposals ranging from the crucial proposal of its National Defence Commission and its special proposal to the statement of its government and has taken practical measures pursuant to them, the statement noted, and continued: The U.S., however, staged Key Resolve and Foal Eagle joint military exercises in succession together with the south Korean puppet forces and kicked off the largest-ever combined aerial drill in the wake of the large-scale joint landing exercises since 1993.

The UNSC persistently overlooked the U.S. madcap war maneuvers for aggression and nuclear threat and took issue with the inevitable option taken by the DPRK to cope with them and censured it. This is absolutely intolerable. If the UNSC is to perform its mission for ensuring global peace and security, it should call into question the offensive, threatening and provocative joint military exercises of the U.S. and the south Korean puppet forces.

How the UNSC approaches the said exercises will be a yardstick to assess its impartiality and judge whether it can contribute to global peace and security both in name and in reality or not. Now that the UNSC serves the purpose of the U.S. hostile moves against the DPRK, bereft of its impartiality, the DPRK is left with no option but to bolster up its muscle to protect itself by its own efforts.

No matter how fair-minded and just one may be, one is bound to fall victim to big powers if one is weak, and it is possible to protect genuine peace only when one builds its muscle strong enough to deter any force from provoking one. This is the lesson and truth taught by history. 

The further the U.S. escalates its nuclear threat and blackmail, the greater efforts the DPRK will channel into bolstering up its nuclear deterrence for self-defence. As long as the U.S. and the south Korean puppet forces persist in their joint military exercises for aggression, the DPRK's counter-actions will be put on an annual and regular basis.

Any conflict which may take place in the course of the Korean People's Army's tactical rocket firing and other intensified retaliatory drills to cope with the U.S ceaseless war maneuvers in south Korea and its vicinity may spill over to a war. In case an unpredictable situation is created on the Korean peninsula, the U.S. and the UNSC which instigated and patronized it will be wholly responsible for the development as it compelled the DPRK to take such inevitable option.