STATEMENT OF DPRK GOVERNMENT

The Government of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea on Monday issued a statement over the fact that the U.S. and other hostile forces, terrified at the growth of the DPRK's state nuclear force in quality and quantity, are steeped in the most intensive sanctions, pressure and provocations against it.

The statement says:

On August 6, the U.S. framed up "sanctions resolution" 2371 at the United Nations Security Council which is geared to completely block the DPRK's economic development and improvement of the people's livelihood, branding its test-launch of ICBM as "a threat to international peace and security".

This UN "sanctions resolution", to all intents and purposes, is an outcome of diabolical attempts of the U.S. to isolate and stifle the DPRK, which constitutes a flagrant infringement upon its sovereignty and an open challenge to it.

The DPRK's access to the strongest nuclear force is a fair and legitimate measure for self-defense to protect the country's sovereignty and the nation's right to existence from the high-handed and arbitrary acts of the U.S. which has made it its business to pursue the policy of extreme hostility and pose nuclear threat to the DPRK well over half a century.

The successive test-launch of ICBM by the DPRK was a stern warning to the U.S. which, being entrenched far across the Pacific, wages reckless and perilous military provocation and despicable campaign of sanctions on the DPRK.

However, the U.S. goes more frenzied and desperate instead of accepting the DPRK's existence and learning to coexist with the latter. It is trying to drive the situation of the Korean peninsula to the brink of nuclear war, running amuck to conduct missile drill against the DPRK and deploying massive strategic equipment to the peninsula.

It was against this backdrop that the U.S. manipulated UNSC to rig up the "sanctions resolution" more heinous than ever, placing a total ban even on normal trade activities and economic exchange, thereby disclosing before the whole world its evil intention to obliterate the ideology and system of the DPRK and exterminate its people.

On the other hand, the U.S. causes such a racket with no time to wipe their mouth, making impudent remarks that it is considering the so-called military option targeting the DPRK.

There are countries to which the ridiculous threats of the U.S. are working and there are countries which lie prostrate at the bluff of the U.S.

The U.S. claiming to be the "only superpower of the world" and the DPRK's neighbors hardly any smaller in size than the U.S. are all so frightened at merely two ICMB test-launches by the DPRK that they are making much a scene baying at each other. Watching them go frantic only redoubles the DPRK's pride in the country's great might and reaffirms its faith that the path it had chosen is the only way to survive and prosper.

The DPRK has already gained everything it needed while having everything wanted in its hands through an arduous struggle under the harshest sanctions regime created by numerous UN "sanctions resolutions" adopted at the instigation of the U.S during the last several decades. It is only a forlorn hope to consider any chance that the DPRK would be shaken an inch or change its stance by the sanctions of this new kind imposed upon by the hostile forces.

As the U.S. launched full-scale provocation against the DPRK across all fields of politics, economy and military, nothing can alter the will and resolve of the army and people of the DPRK to respond by taking resolute retaliatory measures.

The DPRK Government solemnly states as follows to cope with the grave situation created by the frantic acts of the U.S. and other hostile forces;

First, the DPRK condemns in the strongest terms and totally rejects the anti-DPRK "sanctions resolution" of the UNSC rigged up by the U.S. and other hostile forces as a wanton infringement upon the sovereignty of the country.

The DPRK is taking measures to strengthen the self-defensive nuclear deterrence in order to counter the policy of extreme hostility and nuclear threat against it from the U.S., the biggest nuclear weapons state of the world. Terming these measures "a threat to international peace and security" is a gangster like logic indicating that the rest of the world should either become U.S. colonies serving its interests or fall victim to its aggression.

The countries, that openly pursue their ambition to maintain permanent nuclear hegemony by conducting most of the nuclear tests in the world and launching ICBM whenever they please, are adopting illegal and unlawful "sanctions resolutions" to incriminate the DPRK's bolstering of self-defensive nuclear force and enforcing those sanctions over its alleged "violation" of them. This constitutes the height of outrageous double standard.

As long as the U.S. hostile policy and nuclear threat continue, the DPRK, no matter who may say what, will never place its self-defensive nuclear deterrence on the negotiation table or flinch an inch from the road chosen by itself, the road of bolstering up the state nuclear force.

Second, now that the U.S. did forge the "sanctions resolution" by manipulating the UNSC to obliterate the DPRK's sovereignty and rights to existence and development, the DPRK will move into its resolute action of justice as it had already clarified.

The U.S. is acting absurd by resorting to the anachronistic sanctions and pressure campaign against the DPRK, instead of appreciating the strategic status of the DPRK and paying proper attention to its repeated warnings. The unwise conduct of the U.S. will only speed up its own extinction.

As the gangsters of the U.S. remain unabated in their mean and heinous provocation, the DPRK will further increase the strength of justice to thoroughly eradicate the cause of war and aggression and never back away from this fight to a finish.

Third, the DPRK will make the U.S. pay dearly for all the heinous crime it commits against the state and people of this country.

The U.S. once waged a tragic war that plunged this land into a sea of blood and fire, and has been leaving no stone unturned to obliterate the DPRK's ideology and system century after century. The U.S. is sadly mistaken if it considers its mainland a safe haven for being on the other side of the ocean.

Those countries which were offered "thanks" from the U.S. as a reward for taking part in the conspiracy to invent the heinous "sanctions resolution" against the DPRK through their backdoor arrangement this time, too, would never be able to evade the responsibility for increasing the tensions on the Korean peninsula and jeopardizing peace and security of the region.

If the U.S. fails to act with discretion, persisting in its reckless attempts to stifle the DPRK, we will not waver or hesitate to use any form of ultimate means.

The DPRK will hold fast to the line of simultaneously developing the two fronts, the lasting banner of defending peace, and continue to march straight forward to the end of the road chosen by itself without the slightest deviation.