N Korea takes dig at US, says it will keep building nuclear arsenal

Deputy Ambassador Kim in Ryong said it would be a "fatal miscalculation" by countries to believe that the latest sanctions imposed by the council will deter N Korea from developing its nuclear forces.

United Nations, June 29: North Korea's UN ambassador in a rare statement at UN warned the United States and the rest of the world on Wednesday that his country will keep building up its nuclear arsenal regardless of sanctions, pressure or military attack.

Deputy Ambassador Kim in Ryong said it would be a "fatal miscalculation" by countries to believe that the latest sanctions imposed by the council will deter North Korea from developing its nuclear forces. "Their mean and indiscreet act would go in just the opposite direction to what they want," said Kim during a debate on non-proliferation chaired by Bolivia, this month's council president.

"The US kept saying about 'dialogue' even at this moment" when the sanctions were adopted, Kim said. "But it does not make sense to profess about dialogue with unjust preconditions attached and by applying maximum pressure."

Kim said the Trump administration is pursuing an outdated "hostile policy" toward the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, which is North Korea's official name.

Accusing the U.S. of trying to hold down North Korea and retain a military edge in Asia as part of "its dream of world domination," Kim said the North Korean people have concluded that to defend their rights and sovereignty they must respond in kind.

The United States has said it is willing to talk to North Korea if it halts its missile and nuclear tests. This month, the council put 14 North Koreans and four entities on a sanctions blacklist, hitting them with a global travel ban and an assets freeze.

That sanctions resolution builds on two other measures adopted last year after North Korea carried out a fifth nuclear test and test-fired a series of ballistic missiles.

North Korea has dismissed the Security Council as a political tool of the United States and has rarely participated in its meetings, even those that concern Pyongyang directly.

Oneindia News (with agency inputs)