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Rodong Sinmun

North Korea declared on the 67th anniversary of the Korean War’s outbreak that its “defensive nuclear deterrent” was “not for negotiation.”

The Rodong Sinmun, the newspaper of the Korean Workers’ Party, wrote in a front-page editorial on June 25 that North Korea must “unwaveringly see through the party’s strategic course of combining economic development with nuclear weapon development.”

“Our defensive nuclear deterrent is not any matter for negotiation,” the piece said, adding that US and South Korean authorities “must give up their foolish ambitions for the North’s abandonment of nuclear capabilities.”

The editorial described the US Donald Trump administration’s North Korea policy of “maximum pressure and engagement” as a “policy of aggression against North Korea.” It also sent a measure of criticism toward the Moon Jae-in administration, which it accused of “making the same fuss about the North Korean nuclear threat that conservative administrations did, and busying itself with schemes to strengthen the alliance with the US, impose sanctions on North Korea, and rehearse for an invasion of the North and nuclear war.”

“If the authorities in South Korea truly wish to improve inter-Korean relations, they need to stop fixating on our defensive nuclear deterrent and rebel against the US’s conspiracy for an invasion of the North and preemptive nuclear strike, taking practical measures to resolve the intense military confrontation between our two sides,” the editorial said.

By Kim Ji-eun, staff reporter

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