FM Spokesman on U.S. Announcement of Suspension of Food Aid to DPRK

FM Spokesman on U.S. Announcement of Suspension of Food Aid to DPRK

Pyongyang, March 31 (KCNA) -- A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry of the DPRK gave the following answer to a question raised by KCNA Saturday as regards the U.S. moves to exploit the DPRK's planned launch of satellite Kwangmyongsong-3 for meeting its sinister political and military purposes:

The U.S. overreaction to the DPRK's plan to launch scientific and technological satellite for peaceful purposes has gone beyond the limit.

The U.S. has so far insisted that it does not relate humanitarian issue with the political issue. But it responded to the DPRK's planned satellite launch with the announcement to stop following through on its commitment to food aid. This would be a regrettable act of scrapping the DPRK-U.S. agreement in its entirety as it is a violation of the core articles of the February 29 DPRK-U.S. agreement.

The DPRK extended invitation to satellite experts to visit the launching station to show the sincerity of the DPRK as regards the peaceful satellite launch in a transparent manner. But the U.S. clarified that it would not send its experts and also forced other countries not to send one.

This stands in sharp contrast to its previous insistence that the DPRK should accept inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency to ensure the transparency of its nuclear activities.

What the U.S. fears is the objective confirmation of the peaceful nature of the DPRK's satellite launch.

It has its own political and military objective in describing the DPRK's satellite launch as a long-range missile launch.

By describing the DPRK's "long-range missile capabilities" as a "threat to the U.S. mainland", the U.S. seeks to justify its missile defense system, which is opposed by all the countries in Northeast Asia, and use it as a pretext for pressing forward the MD.

The path chosen by the U.S. would harass peace and stability in Northeast Asia including the Korean Peninsula and spark off fresh cold war.

The DPRK has not yet reached such a point as to discuss the severity and gravity of the consequences to be entailed by the U.S. wrong option.

It just hopes that the U.S. would courageously accept peaceful satellite launch by a sovereign state, though belatedly, and prove in practice its words that it has no hostility toward the DPRK. -0-