North Korea’s representative at the United Nations took the podium at the General Assembly on Monday to declare that Pyongyang would never give up its illicit nuclear weapons program, going as far as to credit the country’s pursuit of nuclear weapons with the peaceful status quo on the Korean Peninsula.
Vice Foreign Minister Kim Son-gyong represented North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, who traditionally does not travel to New York for the General Assembly, on Monday. The country spoke on the last day of the General Assembly’s “high-level debate,” which offers the world’s heads of government an opportunity to discuss any issue of their choosing before the countries of the world. Kim’s presence there was notable as North Korea’s foreign minister, Choe Son-hui, also opted to skip the gathering, instead traveling to Beijing this week. In New York, Kim used the time to meet with representatives of fellow communist nations such as Cuba and Nicaragua, and the leadership of socialist Venezuela.
Kim’s remarks blamed the United States and South Korea entirely for tensions on the Korean Peninsula, which are in reality the product of North Korean founder Kim Il-sung choosing to invade South Korea and launch the Korean War in 1950.
“Nowhere in the world can we find such a place as the Korean peninsula where the world’s biggest nuclear weapon state and its allied forces conduct bilateral and multilateral war exercises all the year round,” Kim complained, “and even stage real-war drills simulating the use of nukes targeting a sovereign state, by mobilizing massive multi-national combined forces and latest strategic assets.”
The United States and South Korea regularly engage in military exercises to ensure readiness in the event of an aggression by the North. Pyongyang, through its state media channels, regularly threatens to invade and destroy South Korea, as well as to use its nuclear weapons to destroy major American cities.
The North Korean representative did not leave any room for blaming North Korea’s belligerence for the need for its neighbors to conduct military exercises. Instead, beyond dismissing the potential of his country’s illegal nuclear program to irritate geopolitical tensions, Kim credited the bombs with bringing peace.
“We will never give up nuclear which is our state law, national policy and sovereign power as well as the right to existence,” Kim said. “Under any circumstances, we will never walk away from this position.”
“Thanks to our State’s enhanced physical war deterrent in direct proportion to the growing threat of aggression of the U.S. and its allies,” he argued, “the will of the enemy states to provoke a war is thoroughly contained and the balance of power on the Korean peninsula is ensured.”
“Imposition of ‘Denuclearization’ on the DPRK [North Korea] is tantamount to demanding it to surrender sovereignty and right to existence and violate the Constitution,” Kim later reiterated in his remarks.
The envoy largely reproduced the words of his boss, dictator Kim Jong-un, during an event on Saturday shared by North Korean state media in which he demanded the more robust production of nuclear weapons. Kim Jong-un reportedly led a meeting dedicated to nuclear weapons production in which he called making more bombs an “essential priority.”
“The powerful deterrent, namely, the logic of peacekeeping and security by force with nuclear forces as its backbone, is the invariable stand of the DPRK,” Kim reportedly stated, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
Kim Jong-un made similar remarks prior to that meeting this month addressing the “Supreme People’s Assembly” in which he rejected the idea of denuclearization talks. In those remarks, Kim took care to recall that he had held such meetings with President Donald Trump during the latter’s first term in office and that he had “good memories” of meeting Trump, but these were not enough to change his policy.
“We will never lay down our nuclear weapons,” Kim vowed in that speech. “There will be no negotiations, now or ever, about trading anything with hostile countries in exchange for lifting sanctions.”
Kim Son-gyong largely abstained from discussing issues that did not directly affect North Korea during his address, with the notable exception of Israel’s war against the jihadist terrorist organization Hamas. Kim condemned Israel for attempting to dismantle the genocidal Hamas after the atrocities of October 7, 2023, suggesting that Israel’s operations against Hamas “can even overshadow Hitler.”
Significant evidence suggests that North Korea played a role in the October 7 massacres by providing weapons to the terrorists.
The North Korean envoy failed to address the other major conflict in which North Korea is playing an irritating role, the Russian invasion of Ukraine. North Korea has admitted to sending troops into the conflict, claiming they are merely operating in the Russian territory of Kursk to address the counter-invasion Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky launched last year. Various reports indicate that as many as upwards of 15,000 North Koreans have joined the invasion of Ukraine on Russia’s behalf in the past two years.
Kim concluded with a message to the United Nations to “put[…] an end to the arbitrary, high-handed, biased and double-dealing practices in all its activities and strictly adheres to the principles of sovereign equality, non-interference in internal affairs, impartiality and objectivity.”
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