N.Korea's status as nuclear weapons state 'final, irreversible': FM

Seoul, April 21

North Korea's Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui on Friday said the US and the West have no right to argue about Pyongyang's status as a nuclear weapons power.

In a statement, Choe took issue with the G7 Foreign Ministers that condemned the North's unlawful ballistic missile launches and said Pyongyang "cannot and will never" have the status of a nuclear weapons state under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), reports Yonhap News Agency.

"G7 has neither authority nor qualification to say this or that about the DPRK's exercise of its sovereignty and its national status," she said in the statement carried by the North's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

DPRK stands for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, North Korea's official name.

North Korea's position as a "world-class nuclear power is final and irreversible", and will remain an "undeniable and stark reality" even if Washington does not recognise it for a thousand years, she added.

Choe then warned that any move by G7 members to infringe on the North's sovereignty and fundamental interests will be "completely deterred by strong counteraction".

She also claimed that the North's status as a nuclear power was not "granted or recognized" but established "along with the existence of the actual nuclear deterrence and fixed by the law".

In September last year, Pyongyang passed a new law declaring itself a nuclear weapons state.

Wrapping up a three-day meeting in Japan, the G7 Foreign Ministers on Tuesday issued a joint statement urging North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons and fully comply with the NPT safeguards.

They also condemned the North's test-firing of what it claimed to be a solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile.