NKorea dashes denuclearization hopes

By Alex Jensen

SEOUL

The recent widely celebrated Iranian nuclear breakthrough can be expected to have no impact on North Korea, judging by an indignant statement from Pyongyang Tuesday.

The North’s foreign ministry insisted that it is a “nuclear weapons state,” in a report carried by the authoritarian nation’s official KCNA news agency.

Technically at war with its southern neighbor, North Korea has been the subject of much speculation since this month’s agreement between Tehran and world powers to rein in Iran’s nuclear capabilities.

Pyongyang’s enduring strategy of keeping the world at arm’s length has been pursued through the development of a potentially devastating arsenal.

The United Nations has taken issue with the North over a series of nuclear and ballistic missile tests, but the reclusive state has maintained its stance of aggression – even in the face of sanctions and the documented suffering of its people due to poverty and human rights abuses.

Following calls from South Korea and the United States to follow Iran’s lead, Tuesday’s KCNA dispatch made clear that Pyongyang sees the situation as being “quite different.”

Instead, the North urged the U.S. to abandon its own “hostile policy” before discussing disarmament.

Nearly 30,000 American military personnel are stationed in the South, and joint military drills between the allies have regularly prompted Pyongyang to launch its own provocations.