Choe Son Hui: 'Nuclear Status Immutable for a Hundred or a Thousand Years'... Denuclearization Framed as 'Impossible Delusion'
North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui declared in a statement released through the Korean Central News Agency on the 24th, titled "The Nuclear Possession Will of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea Is Eternal," that her country's will to keep its nuclear arsenal will never change even after a hundred or a thousand years, and that denuclearization is an impossible delusion. The statement came shortly after the foreign ministers of South Korea, the United States, and Japan issued a joint statement at the UN General Assembly on the 21st (local time) reaffirming the goal of North Korea's complete denuclearization.
Regarding the joint statement, Choe rebutted: "It has once again been confirmed that the United States and its allied forces, no matter how they change their wording or repackage it, have not abandoned—and cannot abandon—the delusion of denuclearization," adding, "No country or force can compel us to retreat on defending our national sovereignty and core interests."
Choe characterized nuclear weapons as "the core element of national sovereignty that no one can harm, and the supreme guarantee of national defense," stating that North Korea's assessment and position on this are firm. "The more the United States and its allies sing the praises of denuclearization, the more it only lays the groundwork for the legitimacy of our state's inevitable nuclear possession and its reinforcement, and only hardens our confrontational stance toward the United States," she said.
"Regardless of the rhetorical claims of hostile forces, it remains unchanged that the DPRK's status as a nuclear power will endure forever as an absolute inviolable entity," Choe emphasized. "The restructuring and entrenchment of a geopolitical order centered on the nuclear-armed DPRK is inevitable," she added.
The foreign ministers of South Korea, the United States, and Japan issued a joint statement at the UN General Assembly on the 21st (local time) reaffirming the goal of North Korea's complete denuclearization. The three ministers reaffirmed that the door to dialogue remains open and urged North Korea to return to talks. With North Korea now branding denuclearization a "delusion," the gulf in positions between Pyongyang and the three allies, who have continued to urge it back to dialogue, was laid bare.
