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

Pyongyang, April 1 (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. describes the just self-defensive countermeasures taken by the DPRK to cope with the former's frantic war moves, sanctions and racket to stifle the latter as a "provocation" and "threat" and creates impression that the latter is to blame for the above-said tension. 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. 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 scale and provocative nature. 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. 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-