North vows not to give up its nuclear weapons

North Korea vowed Wednesday not to be bound by the latest United Nations resolution on non-proliferation and disarmament, saying it will never give up its nuclear weapons under any circumstance.

A spokesman for the North’s Foreign Ministry told the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) that the prerequisite to global denuclearization is the United States and other heavy possessors of nuclear weapons carrying out their own disarmament.

The unnamed spokesman quoted by the KCNA, monitored here, then said that North Korea has no choice but to stick to its nuclear deterrent to safeguard regional peace and security as well as its national interest in the face of nuclear threats from the U.S.

The UN Security Council last Thursday unanimously adopted a resolution to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons in a bid to seek a safer world and to create conditions for a world without nuclear weapons. Resolution 1887 was adopted shortly after U.S. President Barack Obama, who holds the rotating council presidency in September, opened the summit. “What matters is that this resolution, too, is a double-standards document as it failed to fully reflect the desire and will of the world community as a whole,” the spokesman said in response to a question from a KCNA reporter. “As a matter of fact, the summit should have called into question and dealt with the U.S. nuclear threat and the reality in which peace and stability are being seriously disturbed in different regions due to the above-said threat.”

In a gesture that appears to leave open the door for dialogue, however, the spokesman stressed that North Korea will strive for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in the context of Washington’s nuclear policy toward Pyongyang and the global effort to build a world free of atomic weapons.

“President Kim Il Sung advanced an idea of denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula and building a world free from nuclear weapons long ago. And it is the desire of the Korean people to live in a peaceful world without nuclear weapons,” said the spokesman, referring to the late founder of the state.

The Pyongyang official’s remark follows South Korean President Lee Myung-bak’s recent proposal of a “grand bargain.” Yonhap