MANILA, Philippines – North Korea blamed the United States for the nuclear issue in the Korean Peninsula, as Pyongyang’s foreign minister addressed a regional forum in Manila on Monday, August 7.

North Korea, also known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), said the Korean Peninsula issue was prompted by the “hostile policy enforced by the US for more than 70 years against the DPRK.”

North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-Ho made these remarks on Monday at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Regional Forum in Manila. North Korea provided reporters with a copy of his statement as Ri returned to his hotel Monday evening.

“The DPRK, which relies on self-reliance and self-development as its mode of existence, can fully counter the hostile policy and acts of the US,” Ri said.  

“Should the US pounce on the DPRK with military force at last, the DPRK is ready to teach the US a severe lesson with its nuclear strategic force it has so far shown in detail,” the North Korean foreign minister added. 

In blaming the US for the Korean Peninsula issue, Ri cited the time when the US “openly declared that it would also drop atomic bombs on the DPRK during the Korean War.” 

He also recalled that in 1957, the US introduced nuclear weapons to South Korea, “thus opening the way to nuclearizing the Korean Peninsula.”

“The US is the one and only country in this world that massacred hundreds of thousands of innocent civilian population by using the nuclear weapon in the real war,” Ri said.

He pointed out that “those countries that are unable or fail to take issue with the US; hostile policy and nuclear threat toward the DPRK, the root cause of the problem, are not qualified morally to talk about the nuclear issue of the Korean Peninsula.”

Ri issued this statement after ASEAN foreign ministers on Saturday, August 5, voiced “grave concerns” over the escalation of tensions in the Korean Peninsula and the missile tests launched by North Korea. 

Tension has been running high since the nuclear-armed North staged two successful intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) tests last month, sparking global alarm over its rapidly-advancing weapons capability. – Rappler.com