A spokesman for the DPRK Foreign Ministry confirmed Thursday that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) had test-fired missiles, saying the missile launches were part of the routine military exercises aimed at increasing the nation's military capacity for self-defense.

The spokesman said in a statement that the DPRK remains unchanged in its will to demuclearize the Korean Peninsula in a negotiated peaceful manner just as it committed itself in the Sept. 19 joint statement of the six-party talks, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported.

The latest missile launch exercises are quite irrelevant to the six-party talks, the statement said.

The KCNA also quoted the spokesman as saying that the missile launches were "successful" and that "the DPRK's exercise of its legitimate right as a sovereign state is neither bound to any international law nor to bilateral or multilateral agreements such as DPRK-Japan Pyongyang Declaration and the joint statement of the six-party talks."

"The missile test moratorium reached between the DPRK and the United States in 1999 was valid only when the DPRK-U.S. dialogue was under way," it said.

The Bush administration, however, has scrapped all the agreements its preceding governments reached with the DPRK and "totally scuttled" the bilateral dialogue, said the statement.

It noted it was the same case with the DPRK-Japan Pyongyang Declaration in 2002 on the long-range missile test-fire.

In the Declaration, the DPRK expressed its "intention to extend beyond 2003 the moratorium on the missile fire," a step taken on the premise that Japan moved to "normalize its relations with the DPRK and redeem its past,the statement said.

However, the Japanese authorities didn't honor their commitment. Moreover, they have pursued a hostile policy toward the DPRK together with the U.S. and chosen to internationalize the "abduction issue" although the DPRK had fully settled the issue.

"It is a manifestation of the DPRK's broad magnanimity that it has put on hold the missile launch so far under this situation," the statement added.

It also said the joint statement released after the six-party talks in Beijing last September, which involves the DPRK, South Korea, China, Japan, Russia and the United States, has stipulated the commitments to be fulfilled by the six sides to the talks to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula.

But Washington imposed financial sanctions against the DPRK soon after the meeting and continued putting pressures on it on all fronts, said the statement.

"It is clear to everyone that there is no need for the DPRK to unilaterally put on hold the missile launch under such situation," the statement said.

The spokesman also said the Korean People's Army will go on with missle launch exercises as part of its efforts to bolster deterrent for self-defense in the future, the statement added.

Defense and intelligence officials in Seoul, Tokyo and Washington were quoted by media as saying that the DPRK test-fired seven missiles of different ranges on Wednesday.

Source: Xinhua