Press Statement of DPRK Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs

Pyongyang, August 14 (KCNA) -- Kim Son Gyong, vice-minister for international organizations of Foreign Affairs of the DPRK, made public the following press statement on Sunday:

According to a news report, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres visited south Korea recently and remarked that he "expresses full support for the complete, verifiable and irretrievable denuclearization (CVID) of the DPRK" and that "this target is important in achieving the regional peace and stability."

I cannot but express deep regret over the said remarks of the UN secretary-general that grossly lack impartiality and fairness and go against the obligations of his duty, specified in the UN Charter, as regards the issue of the Korean peninsula.

So far, we had never expected that the successive UN secretary-generals including the previous one, except an exceedingly few ones, would be able to speak for our fair stand on the issue of the Korean peninsula without prejudice, for their political inclinations and work backgrounds, and the same goes even now.

However, the recent remarks of the UN secretary-general can never go down with us, and we make it clear that they cannot represent the impartial stand of the international community.

It is clearly specified in the UN Charter that the UN secretary-general should not request or accept orders from the government of a specific country but refrain from doing any act that may impair his or her position as an international official who is liable only to the UN.

The so-called CVID, touted by the U.S. and its vassal forces, is just an infringement upon the sovereignty of the DPRK as it demands the unilateral disarmament, and Secretary-General Guterres perhaps knows well that the DPRK has totally rejected it without any toleration.

Nevertheless, he raised the antiquated story of "CVID". The fact goes to prove that the UN secretary-general shows sympathy to the anti-DPRK hostile policy of the U.S. and its vassal forces, out of his post.

To make clear once again, the DPRK's access to nuclear weapons is its inevitable choice to defend the security of its state and people and ensure its independent development from the hostile policy and nuclear threat and blackmail of the U.S. which has imposed untold misfortune and sufferings on the Korean nation for the past seventy-odd years.

The history of confrontation between the DPRK and the U.S. shows that the durable peace and stability in the Korean peninsula can never be ensured unless the U.S., the world's biggest nuclear weapons state and the world's only nuclear criminal, abandons its illegal and cruel, hostile policy towards the DPRK completely and irrevocably.

The secretary-general, the chief of the UN body which has to regard international justice and equality of sovereignty as the fundamental principle of its activities, 

should always maintain fairness, impartiality and objectivity in the international affairs including the issue of the Korean peninsula in any case.

We advise Secretary-General Guterres to be careful in making such dangerous words and deeds as pouring gasoline on flames, instead of doing things helpful to the settlement of the issue under the extremely acute situation on the Korean peninsula. -0-

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