North Korea ‘not to drop nuclear deterrence’

North Korea says it will not relinquish its nuclear deterrence unless the United States ends its hostile policy toward Pyongyang and dissolves the US-led UN command in South Korea.

“The DPRK (North Korea) will never give up its nuclear deterrence unless the US fundamentally and irreversibly abandons its hostile policy and nuclear threat towards my country… and dissolves the UN command, a mechanism which is an aggressive military tool against the DPRK,” said North Korea’s Ambassador to the UN So Se Pyong in Geneva on Wednesday.

“The UN command in South Korea is one of the notorious structures that causes danger of war in the Korean Peninsula,” So said.

Established in 1953 at the end of the Korean War, the United Nations Command Military Armistice Commission (UNCMAC) is meant to supervise the implementation of Korean Armistice Agreement.

The envoy, however, said that North Korea is open to resuming the six-party nuclear talks, which was halted in 2008.

“For six-party talks, we are now ready to have any kind of talks to ease the tension on the Korean Peninsula and to solve any kind of issues, mostly the security issues, because all the problems are security concerned (related),” he said.

The envoy also warned that an upcoming joint military exercise between the US and South Korea would once again raise tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

“The US will stage another joint military exercise in August with South Korea. In this case, the whole Korean Peninsula will fall into the same critical wartime situation.”

The Korean Peninsula has been locked in a cycle of military rhetoric over the past few months.