Deputy Foreign Minister Choe Su Hon of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) urged on Tuesday the United States and Japan to end their hostile policies toward Pyongyang.
Speaking at the general debate of the 62nd session of the United Nations General Assembly, Choe said implementation of the Sept. 19, 2005 Joint Statement on the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula depends particularly on how practical measures the United States and Japan will take to remove their policies on the DPRK.
"The United States should move toward the removal of its hostile policy on the DPRK and normalization of bilateral relations, while Japan make a clean slate of its past of aggression and crime and discard its hostility toward the DPRK as they have pledged to do so," he said.
Choe described DPRK-US hostile relations as the main cause of " a cycle of tension and detente on the Korean Peninsula."
The nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula is "no more than a product of the deep-rooted hostile U.S. policy on the DPRK persisting over half a century," Choe added.
"There has been no other option for the DPRK, small in its territory and population, but to strengthen its self defensive military power... if it is to safeguard the national sovereignty and dignity in the face of the U.S. threats of preemptive nuclear strikes and harsh economic sanctions," Choe said.
He said the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula is "not the one that leads to our unilateral disarming, but the one that is realized through the removal of the DPRK-US hostile relations and the elimination of all nuclear threats on the Korean Peninsula and in its surroundings."
Choe described the DPRK's move to halt operation at the Yongbyon nuclear facilities as a "courageous political decision."
He said the prospects of the implementation of the Sept. 19 Joint Statement, reached at the six-party talks that also involve the Republic of Korea, the United States, Japan, China, and Russia, "rests with every single party fulfilling its own obligations in accordance with the principle of 'actions for actions.'"
"We will watch closely every move on the part of the United States and Japan at the stage that requires actions," Choe said.
In an interview at the DPRK's UN mission in New York with reporters from China, Germany and Russia after the speech, Choe said Pyongyang's relationship with Japan is at the worst stage.
"Japan is now playing a trick to divert the international attention elsewhere by clamoring about the fictitious kidnapping issue in order to avoid the liquidation of its past crimes," Choe said.
On DPRK-U.S. relations, he urged Washington to end its hostile policy toward Pyongyang, discontinue nuclear threats against it, and normalize bilateral relations.
"If those demands are accepted by the United States, there will be more progress in the six-party talks," Choe said.
Source: Xinhua
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