SEOUL: North Korea vowed yesterday to tighten its hold on its “priceless” nuclear deterrent, confounding reports that it might be willing to resume multilateral talks on denuclearisation.
A front-page editorial in the ruling party daily Rodong Sinmun said a strong nuclear deterrent was the only guarantee of a “final victory” against the forces of imperialism.
“We will tighten our grip on this priceless nuclear treasure sword and carry out battles against imperialists with greater vigour,” it said.
The editorial appeared days after Chinese state media said North Korean leader Kim Jong-un had informed Chinese President Xi Jinping that Pyongyang would consider resuming six-party denuclearisation talks.
The Xinhua news agency said the message was sent in a letter delivered to Xi by Kim’s personal envoy in Beijing last week.
The editorial was the latest in a series of commentaries published in recent days that reaffirmed the North’s commitment to pursuing its nuclear weapons programme.
In a clear reference to Iraq and Libya, the newspaper said countries which lacked a sufficient deterrent or agreed to give up their nuclear weapons programmes had ended up as “victims of aggression”.
In an article in the newspaper, North Korea called for replacing an armistice signed at the end of the Korean War with a formal peace treaty to enhance stability on the Korean Peninsula.
Pyongyang claimed efforts to hold onto the ceasefire pact that halted the three-year conflict in July 1953 can be viewed as an attempt to start another war of invasion. “There is a pressing need to replace the Armistice Agreement, a relic of the war, with a permanent peace regime,” the daily said.
A South Korean official said China appeared to have repatriated nine North Korean defectors to their homeland after they were caught in Laos and sent to Beijing early this week.
South Korean News Agency (Yonhap) said the North Koreans, aged between 15 and 23, fled their country to Laos via China last month, but were forced to return to China on Monday after being rounded up by the Lao authorities on May 10. South Korea had asked Laos to send them to Seoul, but Laos rejected the plea.
In Tokyo, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he believed Kim was capable of making the right decision to resolve a dispute over kidnapped Japanese citizens, repeating he was open to a summit if it would settle the row. Abe made his remarks in a TV interview two weeks after a surprise visit to Pyongyang by his aide Isao Iijima. AGENCIES
