Nuclear forces are the only way to prevent war with US - North Korean Foreign Ministry

PYONGYANG, May 31 /TASS/. Measures to strengthen nuclear forces is the only way for North Korea to prevent a war with the United States because of lack of trust between the two countries, a spokesman for the North Korean Foreign Ministry said in a statement published by local newspapers on Sunday. The document said that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea /DPRK/ or simply North Korea had created its nuclear deterrence forces to counterbalance a US military threat and that Pyongyang was exerting every effort to resume talks on the nuclear problem of the Korean peninsula. But the United States is erecting barriers to the negotiations by putting forward various preliminary conditions. The six-way negotiations on the North Korea nuclear problem in which the DPRK, Russia, China, the Republic of Korea, the United States and Japan took part kicked off in 2003 and continued with varied success till 2008. Their main achievement was the adoption of a joint statement in September 2005 in which the DPRK took a commitment to scale down its nuclear programme in swap for security guarantees and economic assistance. Pyongyang refused to participate in consultations after the United Nations had condemned a number of missile launches made by the DPRK. Formally, the six-way negotiations have not been annulled. Read more