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North Korea has condemned the United States and its allies following this week’s NATO summit, accusing the alliance of strengthening military blocs and accelerating an arms build-up while insisting denuclearisation efforts should begin with US allies.
In a statement carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on Saturday, North Korea’s foreign ministry accused NATO leaders of portraying Pyongyang’s exercise of what it called its legitimate sovereign rights as a threat.
The ministry said the alliance had reinforced bloc-to-bloc confrontation through higher defence spending and closer military cooperation with partners in the Asia-Pacific.
At the NATO summit in Turkey on Tuesday, officials announced more than $50 billion in military procurement and industrial agreements as European allies continued to face pressure from US President Donald Trump to increase their defence spending.
South Korean President Lee Jae Myung said on the sidelines of the summit that Seoul hoped to deepen cooperation with NATO members in research and development, including advanced technologies and weapons production.
North Korea said the summit demonstrated that NATO was an organisation focused on war and confrontation, pursuing what it described as exclusive geopolitical interests at the expense of peace and security in Europe and the Asia-Pacific.
Pyongyang, which says efforts by Western countries to persuade it to abandon its nuclear weapons programme have permanently failed, argued that denuclearisation should instead begin with what it described as attempts by South Korea and Japan to pursue nuclear weapons under the protection of the United States, as well as the nuclear ambitions of NATO members participating in the alliance’s nuclear-sharing arrangements.
The foreign ministry said North Korea would continue to protect its sovereignty, security interests and regional peace through what it described as the responsible exercise of its sovereign rights.
KCNA reported on Friday that North Korea had decided to strengthen its nuclear forces “quantitatively and qualitatively” as leader Kim Jong Un pushes to modernise the country’s military.
Faridah Abdulkadiri
