In a rare UN appearance, senior N.Korean diplomat insists his country won’t give up nukes

Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs for North Korea Kim Son Gyong at the UN

A senior North Korean diplomat reiterated at the U.N. yesterday [Macau time] that his country won’t give up its nuclear weapons despite numerous international demands to do so, calling them crucial to keeping a “balance of power” with South Korea. “We will never walk away from this position,” he said.

Under the spotlight of the General Assembly’s annual meeting of world leaders, Vice Foreign Minister Kim Son Gyong amplified his country’s longstanding complaints about U.S.-led military exercises with South Korea and Japan. Complaining that the U.S. and its allies are mounting a “growing threat of aggression,” he portrayed his own country’s arsenal as the reason “the balance of power on the Korean Peninsula is ensured.”

Still, his address was more tempered, especially toward the United States, than many of his country’s prior remarks on the world stage and elsewhere. While Kim lambasted — without naming names — “hegemonic forces” and an “indiscriminate tariff war,” there were no direct references to U.S. President Donald Trump or personal insults, and there was more sternness than over-the-top bellicosity.

Kim vowed that “we will never give up nuclear,” noting that North Korea’s nuclear program is enshrined in its constitution.

He asserted that security on the Korean Peninsula “is faced with serious challenges more than ever,” saying that the U.S.-Japanese-South Korean exercises “are breaking all the previous records in terms of scale, nature, frequency and scope.” The North routinely characterizes such war games as preludes to an attack.

South Korea, for its part, has said the recent trilateral military exercises were necessary to counter North Korea’s growing nuclear and missile threats. Numerous U.N. Security Council resolutions have demanded that the North stop building nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.

But South Korean President Lee Jae Myung told the high-level meeting last week that his new government “will begin a new journey toward peaceful coexistence and shared growth on the Korean Peninsula.” He said, “The first step will be to restore broken inter-Korean trust and shift to a stance of mutual respect.”

North Korea’s Kim did not respond to this overture in his speech.

Kim’s appearance at the United Nations marked the first time since 2018 that North Korea sent a senior diplomat to the General Assembly gathering. MDT/AP