SEOUL: North Korea condemned the United States and its allies on Saturday for what it called strengthening military blocs and accelerating arms buildups after a Nato summit this week. Pyongyang accused Nato leaders of portraying North Korea's exercise of its legitimate sovereign rights as a threat, the foreign ministry said in a statement carried on state media KCNA. The alliance demonstrated a stronger commitment to bloc-to-bloc confrontation through increased arms spending and closer military cooperation with allies in the Asia-Pacific region, the ministry said.
At the Nato summit in Türkiye, officials announced more than $50 billion in military procurement and industrial agreements as European allies face continued pressure from US President Donald Trump to shoulder a greater share of the alliance's defence burden.
President Lee Jae Myung of Pyongyang's rival South Korea said on the sidelines of the summit that he hoped Seoul would expand cooperation with Nato allies in research and development, including in cutting-edge technologies, and in production of weapons systems. North Korea said the summit showed that Nato was a body geared towards war and confrontation, pursuing what Pyongyang described as exclusive geopolitical interests at the expense of peace and security in Europe and the Asia-Pacific.
Pyongyang, which says a push by the West for it to abandon nuclear weapons has been irreversibly terminated, believes instead that denuclearisation efforts should focus first on what it described as attempts by South Korea and Japan to pursue their own nuclear weapons under US protection, as well as the nuclear ambitions of Nato members participating in the alliance's nuclear-sharing arrangements, the ministry said.
It said North Korea would safeguard its sovereignty and security interests, as well as regional peace, through the responsible exercise of its sovereign rights. KCNA said on Friday that North Korea had decided on measures to strengthen its nuclear forces "quantitatively and qualitatively" as leader Kim Jong Un calls for modernising its military.
Meanwhile, Chinese President Xi Jinping said China's commitment to its traditional friendship with North Korea would not change regardless of how the international situation evolves, according to letters exchanged with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and published by North Korean state media KCNA on Saturday. Kim, in a letter to Xi, said bilateral friendship and cooperation had risen to a "new strategic level," KCNA reported.
North Korea's Premier Pak Thae Song arrived in Beijing on Friday for a three-day visit to attend an event marking the 65th anniversary of the neighbours' friendship treaty. Xi travelled to Pyongyang last month for his first visit to North Korea in seven years, where he and Kim agreed to expand cooperation across politics, economy and culture.
The Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, signed on July 11, 1961, remains China's only active mutual defence pact. "Regardless of how the international situation changes, the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese government will continue to attach great importance to the traditional friendship between China and North Korea, continue to firmly support North Korea's socialist cause under the leadership of General Secretary Kim Jong Un, and remain firmly committed to safeguarding the common interests of both countries and a favorable strategic environment," Xi was quoted as saying. — Reuters
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