North Korea has pushed back against the recent discussion of Korean Peninsula denuclearization at the NATO summit and other venues, saying that "the concept of denuclearization should be applied first to Japan, South Korea and NATO member states."
In a spokesperson's statement released the previous day (the 11th) through the Korean Central News Agency, North Korea's Foreign Ministry said the "concept of denuclearization should be applied first to the self-nuclear armament attempts of Japan and South Korea, which are entering an extremely dangerous phase under the active shielding and defense of the United States, and to the nuclear confrontation ambitions of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) member states that share US nuclear weapons." The statement was a rebuke of references to North Korean denuclearization at the recent NATO summit and the South Korea-US-Japan foreign ministers' meeting.
The Foreign Ministry stressed that "the denuclearization claims of the United States, Japan and South Korea, which have completely lost their relevance to the times and their realistic feasibility, can have no effect whatsoever on our country's status."
Regarding NATO, it pushed back, saying it "should have perished with the end of the Cold War," and that "NATO's provocative moves, which systematically worsen Europe's security environment and shift the blame to other countries while creating instability in the Asia-Pacific region, can never be overlooked."
The Foreign Ministry also aligned itself with Russia's justifications for its invasion of Ukraine, saying that NATO "systematically worsened Europe's security environment through reckless eastward expansion and expanded support for neo-Nazi forces, and shifted the responsibility onto other countries."
The Foreign Ministry then argued for the legitimacy of its nuclear possession, saying, "The reckless conduct of confrontational forces creating a structurally destructive threat to the world's security dynamics provides realistic justification for the renewal and expansion of physical deterrence in response."
