North Korea: It Is a ‘Pipe Dream’ for U.S. to Think We Will Give up Nuclear Weapons

December 25, 2017 Focus Washington Foreign Policy

Official Pyongyang said that it was a “pipe dream” for the United States to think it would give up its nuclear weapons, saying that the latest sanctions, approved in response to the launch of a ballistic missile that Pyongyang says can reach anywhere on the U.S. mainland, are an act of war that violates the sovereignty of the country, Associated Press reports.

The resolution was approved on Friday and was drafted by the United States and negotiated with China.

“We define this ‘sanctions resolution’ rigged up by the U.S. and its followers as a grave infringement upon the sovereignty of our Republic, as an act of war violating peace and stability in the Korean peninsula and the region and categorically reject the ’resolution,’” North Korea’s foreign ministry stated.

According to the ministry, the sanctions are equivalent to a complete economic blockade of Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).

“If the U.S. wishes to live safely, it must abandon its hostile policy towards the DPRK and learn to co-exist with the country that has nuclear weapons and should wake up from its pipe dream of our country giving up nuclear weapons which we have developed and completed through all kinds of hardships,” said the statement, carried by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency.

Hua Chunying, a spokeswoman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said that nations should make efforts to de-escalate tensions on the Korean Peninsula and added that the latest UN resolution emphasizes not inflicting adverse humanitarian impact on North Koreans and not affecting regular economic activities or humanitarian assistance.

The resolution foresees limitations on North Korea’s refined oil imports, the returning home of all North Korean citizens working overseas within two years and a crackdown on ships smuggling banned items to and from the country. Among banned items are coal and oil.

Yet, the resolution does not include harsher measures that would ban all oil imports and freeze international assets of the government and of Kim Jong-un, even though that was what the U.S. government demanded.