North Korea will never give up its nuclear program, the country's vice foreign minister Kim Song-gyon told the United Nations General Assembly on Monday, Reuters reported.
He described it as "tantamount to asking it to give up its sovereignty and right to exist".
For the first time, North Korea has sent an official to the annual gathering of world leaders for the General Assembly since the country's foreign minister traveled to New York in 2018.
"Imposing "denuclearization" "To ask the DPRK to give up its sovereignty and right to exist and violate the Constitution," Kim said, referring to the country's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. "We will never give up sovereignty, give up our right to exist and violate the Constitution." "Thanks to the enhanced physical military deterrence of our country, directly proportional to the growing threat of aggression by the United States and its allies, the will of enemy countries to provoke war has been completely limited and the balance of power on the Korean Peninsula has been guaranteed," he said. US President Donald Trump said last month that he wanted to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un this year. Since Trump took office in January, Kim has ignored his repeated calls to revive the direct diplomacy he pursued during his 2017-2021 term, which failed to produce an agreement to suspend North Korea's nuclear program.
Last week, however, Kim said there was no reason to avoid talks with the United States if Washington stopped insisting his country give up nuclear weapons, but he would never give up the nuclear arsenal to end sanctions, state media reported.
"We will never give up nuclear energy, which is our state law, national policy and sovereign power, as well as our right to exist. "Under no circumstances will we ever give up this position," the deputy foreign minister told the UN General Assembly.
North Korea has been under UN Security Council sanctions since 2006, and the measures have been steadily tightened over the years to stop Pyongyang's development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.
But Russia and China are now insisting that UN sanctions on North Korea should be eased for humanitarian reasons and in an attempt to persuade Pyongyang to resume talks.
Russia has also built closer diplomatic and military ties with North Korea since its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and Russian President Vladimir Putin and Kim have visited each other's countries. Russia will fight Ukrainian forces.