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KCNA Assails U.S.-led Multinational Naval Blockade Exercises

KCNA

    Pyongyang, September 16 (KCNA) -- The United States conducted joint naval blockade exercises in the waters off the east coast of Australia from September 13 by mobilizing multinational troops under the pretext of increasing the capability of the international community for the removal of the threat of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The military exercises dubbed "Pacific Protector" were reportedly aimed to intercept and seize DPRK-flagged ships in high seas.
    This is a wanton violation of the sovereignty of the DPRK and intolerable military provocations as it was a prelude to a nuclear war.
    The U.S. is putting its international blockade strategy into practice. Its reckless military moves to stifle the DPRK have created such a dangerous situation on the Korean peninsula that a nuclear war may break out there any moment.
    What matters is that the U.S. is escalating its international blockade strategy against the DPRK behind the scene of dialogue.
    U.S. President Bush set out a "security plan to prevent the proliferation of weapons" in April this year, asserting that the international community is entitled to intercept vessels and aircraft suspected of proliferating weapons in the open sea and along international air routes.
    At the G-8 summit, the U.S. set forth a proposal on setting up a "security system for the prevention of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction" and busied itself to establish an institutional mechanism to justify the interception, inspection and blockade against independent sovereign states. At Madrid and Brisbane conferences held in June and July it discussed measures for collective blockade against the DPRK. The same holds true for the "principles to control weapons of mass destruction" adopted by 11 sponsor nations of the anti-proliferation security proposal in Paris on September 4
    All this goes to prove that the U.S. is not only clinging to the strategy to isolate and stifle the DPRK at any cost in a bid to charge it with nuclear development and strangle it by putting international pressure upon it but also escalating it as the days go by.
    The U.S. is the world's biggest criminal state as regards the proliferation of weapons. However, it is painting itself a "champion of international justice", making the far-fetched assertion that the DPRK poses a threat by proliferating weapons. This can not but be a mockery of the international community.
    At the six-way talks the DPRK served a warning that the projected naval blockade exercises may chill the atmosphere of the talks. But, defying this warning, the Bush administration staged the military exercises only to prove that it has no intention to seek a peaceful settlement of the nuclear issue between the DPRK and the U.S.
    As it became clear that the U.S. used the six-way talks as an opportunity of pressurizing the DPRK to dismantle its nuclear facilities first and disarm itself Pyongyang could not but clarify its stand that it has neither interest nor expectation for the talks.
    The DPRK can not but maintain the highest degree of revolutionary vigilance now that the U.S. is working hard to swallow up the DPRK by projecting the nuclear issue between the two countries as an international issue and laying an "international siege" to it.
    The DPRK will take strong merciless retaliatory measures by mobilizing all its military potentials the moment the U.S. imposes any sanctions or conducts naval and air blockade against the DPRK anywhere.
    The U.S. would be well advised to stop acting rashly, bearing in mind that its undisguised moves to stifle the DPRK will only compel the latter to further increase its nuclear deterrent force for the security of the country and the defence of its sovereignty.