By Xinhua
United Nations : North Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Choe Su Hon has urged the US and Japan to end their hostile policies toward Pyongyang.
Speaking at the general debate of the 62nd session of the United Nations General Assembly Tuesday, Choe said that implementation of the Sep 19, 2005 joint statement on the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula depends particularly on the measures the US and Japan will take to change their hostile policy towards North Korea.
“The United States should move toward the removal of its hostile policy towards North Korea and normalisation of bilateral relations, while Japan must make a clean slate of its past of aggression and crime and discard its hostility toward North Korea as they have pledged to do,” he said.
Choe described North Korea-US hostile relations as the main cause of “a cycle of tension and detente on the Korean Peninsula”.
The nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula is “no more than a product of the deep-rooted hostile US policy on North Korea persisting over half a century”, Choe added.
“There has been no other option for North Korea, small in its territory and population, but to strengthen its self defensive military power if it is to safeguard national sovereignty and dignity in the face of the US threats of pre-emptive nuclear strikes and harsh economic sanctions,” Choe said.
He said the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula is “not the one that leads to our unilateral disarming, but the one that is realised through the removal of the North Korea-US hostile relations and the elimination of all nuclear threats on the Korean Peninsula and in its surroundings”.
Choe described North Korea’s move to halt operation at the Yongbyon nuclear facilities as a “courageous political decision”.
He said the prospects of the implementation of the Sep 19 joint statement, reached at the six-party talks that involves South Korea, the US, Japan, China, and Russia, “rests with every single party fulfilling its own obligations in accordance with the principle of ‘actions for actions’.
“We will watch closely every move on the part of the United States and Japan at the stage that requires actions,” Choe said.
In an interview at North Korea’s UN mission in New York with reporters from China, Germany and Russia after the speech, Choe said Pyongyang’s relationship with Japan is at the worst stage.
“Japan is now playing a trick to divert the international attention elsewhere by clamouring about the fictitious kidnapping issue in order to avoid the liquidation of its past crimes,” Choe said.
On North Korea-US relations, he urged Washington to end its hostile policy toward Pyongyang, discontinue nuclear threats against it, and normalise bilateral relations.
“If those demands are accepted by the United States, there will be more progress in the six-party talks,” Choe said.