US to 'never' accept NK as nuclear state: State Dept.

WASHINGTON (Yonhap) -- The United States made clear Wednesday that it will never recognize North Korea as a nuclear state.

"The United States has long maintained that we will never accept North Korea as a nuclear power," a spokesperson for the State Department told Yonhap News Agency.

The official's comments came in response to a report that North Korea revised its constitution to describe itself as a nuclear power.

Earlier in the day, a North Korean Web site, monitored in Japan, carried the full text of the reclusive communist nation's amended constitution.

It shows three new sentences that highlight the works of its late leader Kim Jong-il, including "the transformation into a nuclear power."

The contents of the website, named "Naenara (my country)," have not been officially confirmed. It is also unclear when North Korea rewrote its constitution.

Pyongyang has carried out two underground nuclear tests, in 2006 and 2009, and has sought to be acknowledged as a nuclear state by the international community.

The department official said, speaking on the customary condition of anonymity, North Korea should comply with its international obligations under a 2005 agreement and U.N. Security Council resolutions that call on it to abandon all nuclear weapons.

"The leadership of the DPRK has a very stark choice," the official said. "They must take a hard look at their policies, stop provocative actions, put their people first -- ahead of their ambitions to be a nuclear power, and rejoin the international community.”

Site Map E-paper Subscribe Register LogIn
Site Map E-paper Subscribe Register LogIn