Beijing
\nNorth Korea\u2019s nuclear weapons programme is \u201cabsolutely non-negotiable\u201d, the powerful sister of leader Kim Jong Un said in a statement carried by state media on Sunday, ahead of a visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping.
\nPyongyang has long insisted on its right to a nuclear weapon and ballistic missile programmes although they are forbidden under the terms of UN Security Council sanctions. It enshrined its nuclear status in its constitution in 2023.
\n\u201cOur status as a nuclear power is absolutely non-negotiable,\u201d Kim\u2019s sister Kim Yo Jong said in a statement published by North Korea\u2019s official Rodong Sinmun, adding that the North \u201cwill not tolerate any threats\u201d.
\nA key player in the country\u2019s communications and foreign policy, Kim Yo Jong\u2019s statement came on the eve of Xi\u2019s visit to North Korea, scheduled to take place from Monday to Tuesday, according to state media.
\nBeijing is a vital source of political and economic support to North Korea, which is one of the most diplomatically isolated countries in the world and under heavy international sanctions.
\nXi\u2019s upcoming visit to Pyongyang would be his first in seven years, and comes after he hosted back-to-back summits with US President Donald Trump and Russia\u2019s Vladimir Putin last month.
\nPyongyang has repeatedly declared itself an \u201cirreversible\u201d nuclear state since Kim Jong Un\u2019s 2019 summit with Trump collapsed over the scope of denuclearisation and sanctions relief.
\nNorth Korea\u2019s leader has since been emboldened by the war in Ukraine, securing critical support from Moscow after sending thousands of troops to fight alongside Russian forces.
\nHe inspected a major munitions factory at the weekend and called for it to boost production capacity, according to a separate report by the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on Sunday.
\nThis was \u201cin order to supply enough quantity of missiles\u201d, KCNA quoted him as saying.<\/p>\n
False information
\nKim Yo Jong, in her statement, went on to slam Washington over its comments that the goal of North Korea\u2019s denuclearisation had been reaffirmed during last month\u2019s summit between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping in Beijing.
\nThe White House posted a fact sheet following the summit stating that \u201cPresident Trump and President Xi confirmed their shared goal to denuclearise North Korea\u201d, which Kim Yo Jong said was false.
\n\u201cSome officials in the United States still have yet to awaken from their escapist and anachronistic dream,\u201d she said.
\n\u201cThis is nothing more than Washington\u2019s habitual dissemination of false information.\u201d
\nShe rejected Washington\u2019s attempts to deny or challenge the North\u2019s status as a nuclear power, saying it \u201ccarries no legal force\u201d.
\n\u201cThe policy of continuously strengthening the country\u2019s self-defensive nuclear deterrent, as set out by the nation\u2019s leader, is an irreversible course that must be implemented without fail,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Beijing North Korea\u2019s nuclear weapons programme is \u201cabsolutely non-negotiable\u201d, the powerful sister of leader Kim Jong Un said in a statement carried by state media on Sunday, ahead of a visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping. Pyongyang has long insisted on its right to a nuclear weapon and ballistic missile programmes although they are forbidden …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":98722,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-98710","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\/98710","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=98710"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98710\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":98729,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98710\/revisions\/98729"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}