North Korea on Friday rejected the G7's call to "
refrain
" from any new nuclear test or ballistic missile launch, reaffirming that its status as a nuclear power was "
final and irreversible
".
North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui denounced an "
extremely interventionist
" statement by the G7, saying the world's seven largest economic powers are "
maliciously
" attacking "
the legitimate exercise of sovereignty
" of his country.
"
The position of the DPRK (
Democratic People's Republic of Korea, editor's note
) as a world-class nuclear power is final and irreversible
," Choe Son Hui hammered in a statement published by the official KCNA news agency.
For the minister, the "
G7, a closed group of a handful of selfish countries, does not represent the international community (in a way) fairly, but serves as a political tool to ensure the hegemony of the United States"
.
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A few days earlier, the G7 foreign ministers had urged Pyongyang to “
refrain from any further destabilizing or provocative actions
” and had urged it to “
complete, verifiable and irreversible abandonment of nuclear weapons
”.
The door to any negotiation on the disarmament of North Korea, a fortiori after the declarations of Choe Son Hui, therefore seems definitively closed.
Pyongyang has recently increased its ballistic missile tests and had already announced last year that its status as a nuclear power was "irreversible".
Washington and Seoul have strengthened their military cooperation and multiplied large-scale joint maneuvers in the region, which has provoked the ire of the North, which considers these exercises as dress rehearsals for an invasion of its territory.