DPRK Will Counter Enemy's Threat of Nuclear War with Its Bolstered Nuclear Capability: FM Spokesman

Pyongyang, April 30 (KCNA) -- Key Resolve and Foal Eagle 16 joint military drills staged by the U.S. and the south Korean puppet forces against the DPRK for 50 odd days were the worst-ever military provocations that pushed the situation on the Korean peninsula to the brink of a nuclear war, said a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry of the DPRK in a statement on Saturday.

The statement went on:

The war rehearsals were the largest-ever maneuvers hostile to the DPRK as it was manifested in the drills that the U.S. scenario and moves to physically eliminate the DPRK reached an extremely dangerous phase.

It is tantamount to an open declaration of war against the DPRK that the U.S., kicking off the drills, undisguisedly revealed its attempt to mount a preemptive attack on the DPRK after discarding even the spurious mask of "defensive drills."

We didn't overlook it but countered it with measures for self-defence in a just manner.

It is the pivot of the DPRK's counteractions for self-defence to counter the enemy's nuclear threat with its own nuclear weapons.

It is the legitimate right of a sovereign state specified also in the UN Charter for the DPRK to react to the enemy's declaration of war and threat with its own steps for self-defence, and even the UN Security Council is not entitled to infringe upon the right.

By opting for undisguised military hostile acts and threats to the DPRK, the U.S. intentionally and completely reneged on the promise specified in the September 19 joint statement as its keynote that it would respect the sovereignty of the DPRK and co-exist with it peacefully and has no intent to attack or invade it with nuclear or conventional weapons.

So, the statement was finally scrapped.

The U.S. no longer has legal foundation or moral justification to urge the DPRK to "be true to its commitments" and the like.

The DPRK will as ever remain unchanged in its stand of countering any war of aggression
to be provoked by the enemy with its just war and react to the threat of a nuclear war posed by them with its bolstered nuclear deterrent.

Whenever the enemy stage war drills, the nuclear attack capability of the DPRK will be bolstered up remarkably.