DPRK FM Spokesman Blames U.S. for Escalating Tension on Korean Peninsula

 Pyongyang, March 31 (KCNA) -- A spokesman for the DPRK Foreign Ministry Thursday released a statement hitting out at the U.S. for its foolish attempt to shift the blame for the escalated tension on the Korean peninsula on to the DPRK.
    The U.S. is describing the just self-defensive countermeasures taken by the DPRK to cope with the former's frantic war moves and its sanctions and racket to stifle the latter as a "provocation" and "threat" and creating impression that the latter was to blame for the above-said tension. This is profound confusing of right and wrong.
    The statement noted that the prevailing grave situation was entirely attributable to the U.S. It went on:
    The U.S. nuclear threat and blackmail are neither temporary ones started recently nor an abstract conception but a potential threat it has posed to the DPRK every day for the past several decades after adopting the preemptive nuclear attack on it as a policy.
    The U.S. attempted to mount a nuclear attack on the DPRK as early as in the 1950s and the Bush administration officially listed the DPRK, which was a non-nuclear state, as part of "the axis of evil" and target of preemptive nuclear attack early in the 21st century.
    The Obama administration excluded the DPRK from the list of the "nuclear non-use" in April of 2010, fully revealing its scenario for mounting a preemptive attack on the DPRK. The U.S. is reiterating it still now.
    It has staged large-scale joint military drills every year and made practical preparations for a nuclear attack on the DPRK by mobilizing various type nuclear war hardware.
    The on-going Key Resolve and Foal Eagle 16 joint military exercises, in particular, are unprecedented in their scale and provocative nature.
    While threatening the DPRK with nukes, the U.S. is resorting to an extreme political and economic pressure on the former.
    Lording it over the UN and the international community, the U.S. is recklessly working to stifle a sovereign state at any cost with every conceivable illegal and brigandish means and methods employed. This can never be tolerated.
    Now that it is as clear as noonday the U.S. military threats and hostile acts against the DPRK are designed to decapitate the supreme leadership and bring down the "social system" of the DPRK, it is left with no option but to take actions to protect the dignity of its supreme leadership, sovereignty and right to existence.
    The U.S. nuclear threat and blackmail, joint military exercises, sanctions and other moves to stifle the DPRK are the root cause of pushing the situation on the peninsula to the brink of a clash of nuclear weapons.
    The U.S. seeks to shift the blame for the escalating tension on to the DPRK by triggering off its resistance through diverse pressure but it brings into bolder relief the true colors of the former as an aggressor and provocateur.
    If the U.S. tries to infringe upon the supreme interests and sovereignty of the DPRK even a bit, the latter will mete out a prompt merciless punishment to it with all means including nuclear force involved and defuse the threats to its sovereignty and regional peace and security, declares the statement. -0-