U.S. Is Chiefly to Blame for Tense Situation of Korea: DPRK Representative in Geneva

Pyongyang, September 1 (KCNA) -- The chieftain driving the situation of the Korean peninsula to the point of explosion is none other than the U.S. which poses extreme nuclear threat and blackmail to the DPRK by conducting war exercises one after another near the peninsula with huge nuclear strategic assets involved. The DPRK permanent representative to the UN Office and international organizations in Geneva stressed this in his speech at the plenary session of the third Geneva disarmament meeting on August 29. The U.S. long-term hostile policy and daily increasing nuclear threats to the DPRK have forced the DPRK to have access to a nuclear deterrence and steadily bolster it to cope with them, he said, and went on: The U.S.-south Korea joint military exercises staged in south Korea every year assume an aggressive and provocative nature and they increase the danger of a nuclear war on the Korean peninsula and endanger the peace and security in the region and the world. The DPRK will never put the nuclear deterrence for self-defense on the negotiating table nor will take even an inch backward from the path of bolstering the country's nuclear force chosen by it as long as the U.S. hostile policy and nuclear threats to the DPRK continue, he emphasized. -0-