Cheong Wa Dae, the Presidential Office, reaffirmed its existing position on Korean Peninsula denuclearization after North Korea's Foreign Ministry issued a statement condemning the Nuclear Consultative Group (NCG), a South Korea-U.S. extended deterrence body, saying that "the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula is a consistent goal of the international community confirmed through United Nations Security Council resolutions."
In a press notice Friday, Cheong Wa Dae stated, "Under the vision of peaceful coexistence and shared growth, the government is working to realize a Korean Peninsula free of war and nuclear weapons."
Earlier, South Korea and the United States held the sixth NCG meeting in Seoul on Tuesday and released a joint statement that included the phrase, "South Korea and the United States affirmed their common goal of North Korea's denuclearization." In response, a spokesperson for North Korea's Foreign Ministry said in a statement, "The meaningless anti-Republic slander rhetoric and nuclear threat collaboration by the United States and its followers can have no effect whatsoever on our irreversible status as a nuclear-weapons state." The spokesperson also condemned the move, saying, "To speak of disarming the nuclear armament of an opposing belligerent, while making nuclear weapons use targeting our country and other regional nations into policy and plotting concrete implementation measures, is sheer nonsense and an empty delusion."
In particular, North Korea's Foreign Ministry said, "The reality that the United States is currently raving over war schemes premised on nuclear use, while massively handing over to South Korea and Japan various forms of military equipment including the latest air-to-air missiles, sufficiently proves the reason and justification for us to devote ourselves further to strengthening the essential self-defense capabilities to guarantee the safety of the state." It claimed this was "a lawful process to ensure peace and stability in the region." It added, "No matter how much the three countries of the United States, Japan and South Korea insist, they will never be able to change the current status of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea as a nuclear-weapons state," emphasizing, "No one will be able to retrieve the 'denuclearization' that has been permanently lost in the tide of the times."
Cheong Wa Dae dismissed North Korea's response, saying, "The South Korea-U.S. extended deterrence cooperation is a duty of a responsible government that protects the lives and safety of its people." It again emphasized, "It fully conforms to the international nonproliferation regime and norms, including the NPT."
