Pyongyang says to strengthen national defense to counter US hostility

PYONGYANG - The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) said Saturday that denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula has "lost its meaning" amid US hostile policy and that it will further bolster all national defense capabilities including nuclear power.

On Thursday, the United Nations General Assembly voted in favor of referring the DPRK to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in a resolution initiated by the European Union and Japan.

Pyongyang accused the United States of launching such a human rights "racket" against the DPRK, which it claimed is a "dangerous politically-motivated attempt to invent an excuse for mounting an invasion of the DPRK."

"It is the most vivid manifestation of the US harsh hostile policy toward the DPRK aimed at isolating and stifling it at any cost," the DPRK foreign ministry was quoted by the official KCNA news agency as saying in a three-point statement.

In the statement, Pyongyang completely rejects the human rights resolution passed by the UN General Assembly, which it said fails to reflect the actual human rights performance in the DPRK and thus can never be valid.

It also said that all the agreements signed between Pyongyang and Washington have become "dead papers" including the Joint Statement of the Fourth Round of the Six-Party Talks signed in 2005 in Beijing, in which both countries agreed to respect each other's sovereignty and exist peacefully together.

Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula has lost its meaning as the US hostile policy aimed to invade the DPRK under the excuse of the human rights issue has grown clear, it noted.

It warned that the army and people of the DPRK will shatter the human rights "racket" launched by hostile forces with "unprecedentedly toughest counteractions" to firmly defend its socialist system.