North Korea Tells UN It Will Continue Its Nuclear Buildup

North Korea’s representative to the United Nations, Kim Song, told the General Assembly on Monday that the communist state plans to continue developing its nuclear arsenal so long as it feels intimidated by the United States.

Speaking on behalf of dictator Kim Jong-un, he insisted that North Korea’s illegal nuclear weapons program was a matter of the “legitimate right to self-defense of a sovereign state.” Earlier this month North Korea passed a law banning denuclearization.

Breitbart reports: Kim Song was unapologetic, emphasizing that the country would pursue increasingly deadly and advanced weapons proportionally to how threatened it felt by the United States. America and North Korea – and China and South Korea – remain technically in a state of war since no peace treaty was signed when active hostilities in the Korean War ended in 1953.

“A few days ago, the U.S. president, just at this place, picked on us saying that despite their ‘efforts to begin serious and sustained diplomacy,’ the DPRK continues to blatantly violate U.N. ‘sanctions,” the diplomat said.

“In direct proportion to the increase of the hostile policy and military blackmail by the U.S. against us, our strength is bound to be built up continuously to contain them,” Kim promised. “The U.S. compelled the DPRK to adopt a law on the policy of nuclear forces in defiance of the U.S. hostility.”

“The U.S. should clearly understand that its heinous hostile policy against the DPRK over the past 30 years has just brought about today’s reality and ask and answer itself and ponder over how far it would lead this situation in the future,” he warned.

Kim also condemned the United Nations, and the Security Council specifically, for condemning North Korea’s nuclear weapons development.

“The mere fact that the UNSC [Security Council] makes an issue of the exercise of the legitimate right to self-defense of a sovereign state is a contradictory act as it denies the basic spirit of the U.N. Charter which clearly stipulates sovereign equality and non-interference as well as the recognized rules governing international relations,” he argued.

The North Korean envoy abstained from mentioning any specific conflicts it was not involved in – in particular failing to mention Russia’s eight-year-old invasion of Ukraine, which became a prime news topic in the West in February. He urged in passing attention for “climate change,” but did not offer any specific policy requests. He also demanded reform of the U.N. Security Council to curb America’s power but stopped short of urging its removal from the diplomatic body.

“Today, the world is faced with not a few severe crises and challenges, but the most fundamental danger is the high-handedness and arbitrariness of the U.S.,” Kim concluded, “and its followers that are destroying the foundation of the international peace and stability in order to maintain the hegemonic unipolar world.”