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North Korea denounced calls for its denuclearization at the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) 70th General Conference, saying its status as a nuclear weapons state is “absolute” and cannot be reversed, state media reported Thursday.
Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, dismissed the denuclearization discussions held in Vienna as “familiar silly talk,” according to the Korean Central News Agency.
“The DPRK’s position as a nuclear weapons state is absolute, which cannot be reversed by anything,” she said, using the abbreviation for North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
The IAEA General Conference expressed concern over North Korea’s expanding nuclear capabilities. It urged Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear weapons program in a “complete, verifiable and irreversible manner” in line with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, or NPT.
Kim rejected the calls as “all noises, not surprising and not new.”
“No matter how desperately the IAEA and the West may hold periodic meetings and talk about the denuclearization according to the fixed scenario, they can have no effect on the will and ability of the DPRK to take all necessary measures to defend the supreme interests of the state,” she said.
Kim said North Korea’s nuclear position had become permanently established both physically and legally.
“The reality in which the nuclear position of the DPRK has been permanently settled physically and legally cannot change even a bit,” she said.
“No one and nothing can ever reverse the crucial changes in the strength and position of the DPRK and prevent them in the future too,” she added.
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