North Korea’s foreign minister made her first formal statement directed at the U.S. in about half a year to say Pyongyang will keep its nuclear weapons and punish Group of Seven members who try to change that.
"The position of the DPRK as a nuclear weapons state will remain as an undeniable and stark reality — no matter that the U.S. and the West would not recognize it for a hundred or a thousand years,” said Choe Son Hui in a statement published Friday by the state-run Korean Central News Agency. The country’s top diplomat was referring to North Korea by its formal name.
The message served as a reminder that leader Kim Jong Un may try to force his way on to the agenda when G7 leaders hold their annual summit next month in Japan. His regime has ratcheted up tensions to levels unseen in years with tests of new weapons to deliver nuclear strikes, including a solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missiles launched for the first time this month that could be quickly deployed to carry a warhead to the U.S. mainland.