The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) is against any move by the United States to internationalize the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said on Sunday.
The nuclear issue is a product of the anti-DPRK policy of the United States, it said, adding that the problem should be resolved by the US and the DPRK rather than by any third party including the United Nations Security Council.
"If the United Nations wants to show its principled stand and attitude to settle the issue with a fair concern for it, it should call into question the US unreasonable DPRK policy that compelled it to take a self-defensive step to withdraw from the Non-Proliferation Treaty," the KCNA said.
"If the US drives the developments to the extremes, the DPRK will be left with no option but to counter it with the toughest stance," it warned.
The DPRK, which the Bush administration suspects of developing nuclear arms, pulled out of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) recently, but said it had no intention to produce nuclear weapons.
The crisis began in early December when the DPRK announced it was restarting its nuclear facilities to produce electricity, because the US had halted fuel deliveries in violation of a 1994 agreement.
(Xinhua News Agency January 20, 2003)
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