SEOUL: North Korea on Tuesday criticized the United States and Asian neighbors for pursuing the \u201cabsurd\u201d goal of denuclearizing the North and said it will push to expand its nuclear forces under the direction of its authoritarian leader Kim Jong Un.
\nThe statement by Pyongyang\u2019s Foreign Ministry came after the top diplomats of the US, South Korea and Japan met at a security conference in Germany and reaffirmed their commitment to strengthening military cooperation and reinforcing an international sanctions regime to counter Pyongyang\u2019s nuclear ambitions.
\nThe North Korean ministry accused the US of trying to realize an \u201coutdated and absurd plan\u201d of denuclearizing the North and warned of \u201coverwhelming and decisive counteraction\u201d against its rivals if it perceives its security is under threat. It said the North will \u201cconsistently adhere to the new line of bolstering the nuclear force\u201d established by Kim and \u201cthoroughly deter the US and its vassal forces\u201d from threats and blackmail against the North\u2019s sovereignty.
\nIt was the latest North Korean statement accusing the US of maintaining hostile policies against Pyongyang, though state media has so far avoided directly naming US President Donald Trump, who, during his first term, engaged in unprecedented summits with the North Korean leader.
\nUS Secretary of State Mark Rubio held a three-way meeting with the South Korean and Japanese foreign ministers in Munich, Germany, on Saturday and reaffirmed their commitment to the North\u2019s \u201ccomplete denuclearization\u201d and maintaining an effective sanctions regime targeting the country\u2019s weapons program. The countries also agreed to bolster defense and deterrence, including by expanding three-way military exercises and strengthening Japan and South Korea\u2019s military capabilities, according to a joint statement released after the meeting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SEOUL: North Korea on Tuesday criticized the United States and Asian neighbors for pursuing the \u201cabsurd\u201d goal of denuclearizing the North and said it will push to expand its nuclear forces under the direction of its authoritarian leader Kim Jong Un. The statement by Pyongyang\u2019s Foreign Ministry came after the top diplomats of the US, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":77239,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77217"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77217\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77241,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77217\/revisions\/77241"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}