North Korea Accuses US Of Wanting Regime Change At All Cost

NKOREA-POLITICS-KIM

North Korea has accused the United States of being “hell-bent on regime change” and warned that any manoeuvers with that intention will be viewed as a “red line” that will result in countermeasures.

Pyongyang’s deputy UN ambassador, Ri Tong Il, also repeated that his government “made it very clear we will carry out a new form of nuclear test” but refused to elaborate, saying only that “I recommend you to wait and see what it is.”

Ri said this at North Korea’s second press conference at the United Nations in two weeks, a surprising rate for the reclusive Communist government, blaming the US for aggravating tensions on the Korean Peninsula by continuing “very dangerous” military drills with South Korea, by pursuing action in the UN Security Council against his country’s recent ballistic missile launches and by going after Pyongyang’s human rights performance.

Ri also accused the US of blocking a resumption of six-party talks on its nuclear program by settling preconditions and said Washington’s primary goal is to maintain tensions and prevent the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula.

A US diplomat who was not authorised to comment publicly later told the Associated Press news agency: “We have long made clear – in close consultation with our allies – that we are open to improved relations with the DPRK if it is willing to take clear actions to live up to its international obligations and commitments.”

Using the initials of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the country’s official name, Ri said, “The DPRK has been making strenuous, hard efforts, very generous, toward easing the tensions on the Korean Peninsula, but ignoring all this generous position of the DPRK and its proposals, the US went ahead with opening the joint military drills, [in a] very aggressive nature, and they’re now expanding in a crazy manner the scale of this exercise.”

He also rejected as “illegal” a Security Council statement last week that condemned North Korea’s test-firing of two medium-range ballistic missiles as violations of council resolutions.