North Korea's No. 2 leader blamed the lack of world peace on the United States Saturday at the Nonaligned Summit, saying that because of its failure to respect the sovereignty of other nations, “the international order is destroyed.”
Parliament leader Kim Yong Nam said desires for peace by the 118 countries in the Nonaligned Movement were “confronted with grave challenges owing to the high-handed acts and unilateralism of the superpower, which denies countries and nations the independent choice of development.” The resulting imbalance in global politics constitutes “rave threats to world peace and security,” he said.
The United States declined an invitation to attend the Nonaligned summit and said it would have no comment on any of the proceedings. The Nonaligned Movement was formed during the Cold War to establish a neutral third path in a world divided by the United States and the Soviet Union.
Kim also defended the North's nuclear program amid concerns the communist country may be preparing to carry out an atomic weapons test. North Korea “has been left with no other option but to possess nuclear weapons as a self-defensive deterrent," he said. 'The DPRK would not need even a single nuclear weapon if there no longer existed a U.S. threat.”
Recently, the United States has moved to sever North Korea's connections to outside banks, alleging any transactions conducted by the Pyongyang regime are suspect and could be connected to illegal activity - including money laundering and counterfeiting U.S. dollars. “The DPRK will never go back to the talks under U.S. sanctions,” Kim said.
[Excerpt of an article by Vanessa Arrington, Associated Press]
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