U.S. Should be Accustomed to Status of DPRK as Nuclear Weapons State

Pyongyang, January 16 (KCNA) -- A spokesman for the DPRK Foreign Ministry issued a statement on Friday in which it said that its first successful H-bomb test was a just measure for self-defense to defend the sovereignty of the country and the right of the nation to live and ensure peace on the Korean Peninsula and regional security. The DPRK is not interested in aggravating the situation as it is channeling all its efforts into the building of an economic power and feels no need to provoke anyone, the statement said, and went on: As the first chairman of the National Defence Commission of the DPRK clarified in his New Year Address, its primary task for this year is to develop economy and improve the people's standard of living and to this end it requires stable situation and peaceful climate more than any time. As the U.S. hostile acts against the DPRK have become "routine," the latter has also become routine in its work to implement the line of simultaneously developing the two fronts for self-defence to cope with them. It is preposterous for the U.S. to talk about "provocations" from the DPRK though it is persistently sidestepping the latter's fair and aboveboard proposals and escalating the tension. It is the U.S. and the south Korean puppet forces that are making provocations, rendering the situation extremely tense. Once a powder keg catches fire and goes off, the responsibility for it will rest with those who ignited the fuse. -0-