Pyongyang, May 7 (KCNA) — Kim Song, permanent representative of the DPRK to the UN, issued the following press statement on May 6:
At the 11th NPT review conference now under way at the UN Headquarters, the U.S. and some vassal countries are tarnishing the atmosphere of the conference, groundlessly taking issue with the present position and exercise of sovereign rights of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, a nuclear weapons state outside the treaty.
The NPT review conference, which should contribute to the international issue of nuclear disarmament and the solution of the root cause of the danger of nuclear conflict, loses its original mission and turns into a place of malicious accusation against the sovereign states according to the sinister political attempt of the U.S. and Western forces. This is the fundamental reason why the global non-proliferation system is weakening.
I denounce and reject in the strongest tone the brigandish and shameless acts of the specific countries including the U.S. which are taking issue with the DPRK’s realistic and just access to nuclear weapons through the legal route and exercise of its inherent defensive rights as a sovereign state.
The wrong behavior of the U.S. and Western countries forcing the DPRK, which transparently exercised the right to withdraw from the treaty according to Article 10 of the NPT, to fulfill the treaty obligations is a wanton violation of the spirit of the treaty and a total disregard of the purpose and principle of international law.
Before insisting obstinately on the observance of treaty obligations of the DPRK, which legally withdrew from the NPT decades ago, the U.S. should answer first whether the same criteria apply to the implementation of the obligations of various international treaties and international organizations conventions it had quit.
The soundness and legality of the NPT are not shaking by the exercise of the rights of a sovereign state existing outside the treaty, but are eroding from inside by the failure in obligations of some treaty member states including the U.S. which are abusing the nature and application of the treaty arbitrarily.
It should be the essential point of implementing the NPT and the main agenda item of the current review conference to rectify the violation of treaty obligations of the U.S. and some countries which are now neglecting the obligations to nuclear disarmament as the signatories to the NPT and resorting to such proliferation acts as offer of “extended deterrence” and transfer of nuclear submarine technology to non-nuclear states.
The position of the DPRK as a nuclear weapons state does not change in accordance with rhetorical assertion or unilateral desire of outsiders.
Clarifying once again, the DPRK is not bound by the NPT in any case.
The DPRK will make a positive contribution to the efforts of the international community to ensure international peace and security and promote global strategic stability by remaining faithful to the law on the state nuclear force policy which clarifies the mission of nuclear force, the principle of using nuclear weapons and the obligation to prevent proliferation in a most transparent way and to the implementation of its obligations under the state Constitution which fixes its legal position as a nuclear weapons state. -0-
www.kcna.kp (2026.05.07.)
