DPPK Will Not Take Part in UN Conference on Nuclear Weapons: Foreign Ministry

 Pyongyang, March 24 (KCNA) -- A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry of the DPRK gave the following answer to a question raised by KCNA Friday as regards the DPRK's decision not to take part in the United Nations conference to negotiate a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons:
    There will take place the UN conference to negotiate a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons at the UN headquarters at the end of March and from mid-June to early in July this year.
    The UN conference reflects the human desire and wish for total elimination of nuclear weapons.
    But question is whether the conference can produce a result reflective of this desire and wish now that the U.S. and other nuclear weapons states deny the participation in the conference.
    As it presents itself as an immediate vital requirement for the DPRK to further bolster the capabilities for self-defence with a nuclear force as pivot given that the U.S. is staging joint military exercises for aggression after introducing largest-ever strategic assets into the Korean peninsula, the DPRK can not but take into serious account its participation in the conference and, therefore, decided not to take part in the conference.
    But the DPRK will continue to support the idea of the non-aligned movement for the total dismantlement of nuclear weapons and the worldwide efforts for it and will fulfill its responsibility as a nuclear weapons state until the denuclearization of the world is realized. -0-