North Korea is apparently willing to give up its nuclear weapons, but only on one condition.
North Korea, which conducted its sixth nuclear test last month by detonating a staged thermonuclear bomb, claims it is in favor of a world devoid of nuclear weapons, but it does not intend to forfeit its weapons until the U.S. does the same, a senior North Korean diplomat stated.
“The [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] consistently supports the total elimination of nuclear weapons and the efforts for denuclearization of the entire world,” Kim In Ryong, deputy permanent representative of the North Korea to the United Nations, explained Monday, “but as long as US, who constantly threatens and blackmails the DPRK with nuclear weapons, rejects the NBT [Nuclear Ban Treaty], the DPRK is not in a position to accede to the treaty.”
“Unless the hostile policy and the nuclear threat of the U.S. is thoroughly eradicated,” he continued, “we will never put our nuclear weapons and ballistic rockets on the negotiating table under any circumstances.” North Korea asserts that it has the right to develop nuclear weapons for self-defense against the U.S., the only nation to have ever used a nuclear weapon against another state.
President Donald Trump has made similar statements concerning America’s nuclear arsenal.
“I would like to de-nuke the world. Nuclear is our greatest threat worldwide. I would like Russia and the United States, China and Pakistan, and many other countries that have nuclear weapons to get rid of them,” Trump said in August, adding that until that time comes, the U.S. will be the most powerful nuclear country on the planet.
“The first order I gave to my generals, I want this, our nuclear arsenal, to be the biggest and the finest in the world,” the president said. “It’s in tip-top shape and getting stronger.”
“Until such time as this scourge disappears,” Trump stressed at the time. “We will be so much better and so much stronger than anybody else, and nobody, including North Korea, is going to be threatening us with anything.”
Both the U.S. and North Korea are locked in a nuclear standoff, and both sides are shying away from a diplomatic solution. The Trump administration has expressed an interest in negotiation, but emphasized pressure and the military option should North Korea take things too far, and the Kim regime has said that it will only negotiate once it has a reliable nuclear deterrent against the U.S. and its regional allies in Asia.
The two sides have engaged one another in a war of words, with each country brandishing its weapons for the other to see. As the North sends ballistic missiles soaring over Japan, the U.S. sends supercarriers, nuclear-powered submarines, and supersonic bombers to the peninsula. The situation on the Korean Peninsula has “reached the touch-and-go point and a nuclear war may break out any moment,” Kim explained.
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