Ambassador says N. Korea was forced to take countermeasures following U.S. threats
MOSCOW. May 21 (Interfax) - North Korean Ambassador to Moscow Kim Yong Jae has said that the United States bears most of the blame for the current escalation of tensions on the Korean peninsula, adding that Pyongyang was forced to take tough measures in response to direct military threats from Washington.
"Today we are witnessing a sharp intensification of provocative activities on the part of the U.S. and South Korea, which are destabilizing the situation on the Korean peninsula. Apart from that, the scope and the danger of such activities keep growing," the North Korean diplomat told Interfax in an interview.
"The UN Charter does not contain such a principle that would allow the UN Security Council to adopt "resolutions" contradicting international law. It means that all "resolutions" in relation to the DPRK [Democratic People's Republic of Korea] that deny it the right to carry out space launches are illegitimate because they directly contradict the Outer Space Treaty, which recognizes the right of all sovereign states to the peaceful use of outer space," Kim said.
"Until today, more than 9,000 space launches were carried out across the world. In our region alone, Japan launched a reconnaissance satellite in January this year, and South Korea conducted a satellite launch in March. But only our space launch was called into question, and the UN Security Council passed a resolution against it. It means that, in the presence of the legal right to space launches, the sovereign state's dignity was brutally trampled upon," the ambassador said.
During the latest nuclear military exercises against North Korea, which continued for two months, the U.S. voiced its fiercest threats in relation to North Korea, and these threats became the main immediate reason for the current escalation of tensions on the Korean peninsula, he said.
"Amid the massive redeployment of all of the components of the "nuclear assault triad means" from the U.S. strategic forces arsenal, groups of super-powerful aircraft carriers with nuclear warheads onboard and strategic nuclear submarines entered the area off the Korean peninsula [coast], accompanied by strategic bombers, including B-52 and B-2 planes, which openly practiced a tactic of launching nuclear strikes in the air. Attempts were even made to carry out ICBM [intercontinental ballistic missile] tests, which were then rescheduled until a later date, but, as has been said, could still take place before the end of May," the ambassador said.
In the present circumstances, North Korea was forced to conduct the third underground nuclear test as a component of the actual response measures aimed at protecting its sovereignty and security, he said.
"The matter is that the U.S., which is brandishing a nuclear bludgeon right in front of our eyes, has found a way to mislead the international community, calling our response measures "provocations" and "threats" and distorting the actual situation by saying that tensions in the region are allegedly being fuelled by the DPRK," Kim said. "The U.S. bears full responsibility for the tensions on the Korean peninsula," Kim said.
"The current tensions on the Korean peninsula were not caused by the DPRK threatening the U.S. by holding military exercises in front of its nose. On the contrary, it was the U.S. that posed serious threats to the security of the DPRK by conducting vigorous nuclear military exercises on an unprecedented scale along its borders and vainly trying to test the will of the country's supreme leadership," the North Korean diplomat said.
"That is why the DPRK had to take tough response steps for the purposes of its self-defense," he said.
"There is no country in the world that would fail to fiercely respond to overt and very dangerous military exercises on such a scale being held against it and right in front of its nose," he said.
"The DPRK took tough military countermeasures in the face of the most serious, severe and direct nuclear threats on the part of the U.S. only to protect the country's sovereignty and the nation's right to exist," the North Korean ambassador said.