North Korea accused the US of seeking its elimination, saying American policy toward the totalitarian state has brought the region closer to nuclear war.
“Due to the continued hostile policy towards the DPRK, the vicious cycle of confrontation and aggravation of tension is an ongoing phenomenon on the Korean peninsula, which became the world’s most dangerous hot spot where a spark of fire could set off a thermonuclear war,” Vice Foreign Minister Pak Kil Yon said in a speech yesterday at the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
DPRK refers to the country’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
The US led the push for the UN to broaden international sanctions against North Korea following its launching of a long-range rocket in April. The Obama administration also canceled a deal to provide 240,000 metric tons in food aid to the impoverished nation, which in turn broke off a pledge to halt missile and nuclear tests.
North Korea routinely accuses the US and South Korea of military provocations. New leader Kim Jong Un, who succeeded his late father Kim Jong Il as dictator last year, told army units in August to prepare for “sacred war” during an annual US- South Korea military drill.
About 29,000 American troops are stationed in the South, a legacy of the 1950-53 war that ended without a formal peace treaty.