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DPRK Can Never Accept U.S. Brigandish Demand

Korean Central News Agency of DPRK via Korea News Service (KNS)

    Beijing, September 16 (KCNA) -- A spokesman for the DPRK delegation participating in the six-party talks for the solution of the nuclear issue between the DPRK and the U.S. was interviewed by world media in Beijing Friday. At the press conference the spokesman clarified the principled stand of the DPRK on the U.S. side's talk about "provision of light water reactors (LWRs) after the DPRK's return to the NPT."
    He said: One may say that the nuclear issue between the DPRK and the U.S. was settled by the adoption of the DPRK-U.S. Agreed Framework (AF) in 1994. At that time, we froze our independent nuclear power industry in accordance with the planned U.S. provision of the LWRs to us.
    However, no sooner had the Bush administration come to office than it scrapped the AF and listed the DPRK as part of "an axis of evil" and a "target of its preemptive nuclear attack."
    As a self-defence measure to cope with this, the DPRK pulled out of the NPT and under the situation where it was in the imminent danger of meeting the same fate as Iraq's it opted to bolster its nuclear deterrence for self-defence.
    In the meantime, we positively initiated the six-party talks as a token of our utmost magnanimity and declared the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula as our general goal.
    What is essential here is the denuclearization of the peninsula. At the six-party talks we said we would feel no need at all to keep nuclear weapons when confidence is built between the DPRK and the U.S. after the normalization of their relations and we would feel no nuclear threat from the latter. The U.S., however, interpreted this stand of ours as "weakness" and raised the brigandish demand that we dismantle all our nuclear programs. The U.S. claim that the DPRK dismantle first its nuclear deterrence built for its self-defence means pressurizing it to lay down its arms. It is too naive to demand such a thing.
    Our stand is that the U.S. had better not even dream of this. It is said that even at this time the U.S. Department of Defense is contemplating making its doctrine of preemptive nuclear attack official.
    Under this situation we can never accept its demand that we dismantle our nuclear program first.
    We demanded the provision of LWRs, deeming it as a basic benchmark for confidence building between the DPRK and the U.S. and said it would put their operation under a joint control and receive inspection, too, in consideration of the latter's concern. Our demand , therefore, is not far-fetched.
    If the U.S. persistently insists that it would not provide LWRs, a basic benchmark for confidence building, we will not be able to suspend even a moment the peaceful nuclear activity of our own style.
    It is, therefore, our position that the U.S. may provide LWRs to us or not. We are free to go our own way in accordance with our Songun line.