(MENAFN- The Journal Of Turkish Weekly) North Korea sent out an unambiguous statement Tuesday by opposing plans to discuss denuclearizing the military-first nation.
Having surprised reporters with a media briefing at the North Korean Embassy in Beijing, Ambassador to China Ji Jae-ryong dismissed hopes that Pyongyang might follow Iran's example by striking a nuclear deal with the United States.
"We have the power to cope with any kinds of war methods of the U.S. imperialists and have the strong power to restrain the provocative nuclear war acts of the U.S.," Ji said via an interpreter.
He insisted that the North would not make the first move and blamed Washington for the breakdown of talks in the past.
Pyongyang has regularly condemned the U.S. military presence in South Korea, and Ji's statement came on the same day as the scheduled arrival in Beijing of Washington's special envoy for North Korea's nuclear program, Sydney Seiler.
A day earlier in South Korea, Seiler had made an optimistic comparison between the North and Iran, though Ji insisted that his country is already "a nuclear weapons state both in name and in reality."
The location of Tuesday's briefing was all the more significant because Beijing is seen as a critical ally of North Korea and the best hope of talking Pyongyang round € but China has also been calling for a denuclearized Korean Peninsula.
Ji said he had nothing to add on Beijing's stance, though speculation of a lasting rift between the two sides may be premature.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un recently offered a conciliatory gesture by recognizing the sacrifice of Chinese soldiers who lost their lives fighting on the North's side during the 1950-53 Korean War.
The Koreas have spent the last 62 years in a state of truce, rather than peace.
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