The North Korean regime emphasises US hostility, rejects a quid pro quo involving nuclear weapons for economic aid, despite the fact that its population has reached the end of the road.

Seoul (AsiaNews/Agencies) – North Korea will not give up its nuclear weapons in exchange for economic aid.  The United States will have to abandon its hostility towards Pyongyang first, North Korea’s KCNA news agency announced today.  

“Unless the United States ends its hostile policy and threats towards our Republic, we shall never abandon our nuclear weapons even if the earth should split,” it said.

North Korea has built nuclear weapons for its own defence, and “not to threaten anyone else or to get economic favours or rewards,” KCNA added.

Pyongyang’s preconditions for a return to the stalled six-nation talks (which in addition to the two Koreas include China, Russia, Japan and the United States) on the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula are the start of peace treaty negotiations with Washington and Seoul to formally end the Korean War (1950-1953) and a preliminary termination of United Nations sanctions.

However, without economic and food aid from the international community, North Koreans are unable to survive.

Following a recent bungled currency reform, which led the prime minister to apologise, the number of North Koreans living below the poverty line has skyrocketed.

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