[Title] Official Statement of the Government of The DPR of Korea on Withdraw of the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty

Pyongyang, 10 January Juche 92 (2003)

A dangerous situation where our national sovereignty and out state’s security are being seriously violated is prevailing on the Korean Peninsula due to the U.S. vicious hostile policy towards the DPRK.

The United States instigated the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to adopt another resolution against the DPRK on January 6 in the wake of a similar resolution made on November 29, 2002.

Under its manipulation, the IAEA in those resolutions termed the DPRK ‘criminal’ and demanded it scrap what the U.S. called a ‘nuclear program’ at once by a way that makes verification possible in disregard of the nature of the nuclear issue, a product of the U.S. hostile policy toward the DPRK, and its special status in which it declared a moratorium on its withdrawal from Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Following the adoption of the latest resolution, the IAEA director general issued an ultimatum that the agency would bring the matter to the UN Security Council to apply sanctions against the DPRK unless it implements the resolution in a few weeks. This clearly proves that the IAEA still remains a servant and spokesman for the U.S. and the NPT is being used as a tool for implementing the U.S. hostile policy towards the DPRK aimed to disarm it and destroy its system by force.

A particular mention should be made of the fact that the IAEA in the recent resolution kept mum about the U.S. which has grossly violated the NPT and the DPRK-U.S. Agreed Framework, but urged the DPRK, the victim, to unconditionally accept the U.S. demand for disarmament and forfeit its right to self-defence, and the agency was praised by the U.S. for saying all what the U.S. wanted to do.

This glaringly reveals the falsehood and hypocrisy of the signboard of impartiality the IAEA put up.

The DPRK government vehemently rejects and denounces this resolution of the IAEA considering it as a grave encroachment upon our country’s sovereignty and the dignity of the nation.

It is none other than the U.S. which wrecks peace and security on the Korean Peninsula and drives the situation there to an extremely dangerous phase.

After the appearance of the Bush administration, the United States listed the DPRK as part of an ‘axis of evil’, adopting it as a national policy to oppose its system, and singled out it as a target of pre-emptive nuclear attack, openly declaring a nuclear war. Systematically violating the DPRK-U.S. Agreed Framework, the U.S. brought up another ‘nuclear suspicion’ and stopped the supply of heavy oil, reducing the AF to a dead document. It also answered the DPRK’s sincere proposal for the conclusion of the DPRK-U.S. non-aggression treaty and its patient efforts for negotiation with such threats as ‘blockade’ and ‘military punishment’ and with such an arrogant attitude as blustering that it may talk but negotiations are impossible.

The U.S. went so far to instigate the IAEA to internationalize its moves stifle the DPRK, putting its declaration of a war into practice. This has eliminated the last possibility of solving the nuclear issue of the Korean Peninsula in a peaceful and fair way.

It was due to such nuclear war moves of the U.S. against the DPRK and the partiality of the IAEA that the DPRK was compelled to declare its withdrawal from the NPT in March 1993 when a touch-and-go situation was created on the Korean Peninsula.

As it has become clear once again that the U.S. persistently seeks to stifle the DPRK at any cost and the IAEA is used as a tool for executing the U.S. hostile policy towards the DPRK, we can no longer remain bound to the NPT, allowing the country’s security and the dignity of out nation to be infringed upon.

Under the grave situation, where out state’s supreme interests are most seriously threatened, the DPRK government adopts the following decisions to protect the sovereignty of the country and the nation and their right to existence and dignity.

Firstly, the DPRK government declares an automatic and immediate effectuation of its withdrawal from the NPT, on which it unilaterally announced a moratorium as long as it deemed necessary according the June 11, 1993, the DPRK-U.S. Joint Statement, now that the U.S. has unilaterally abandoned its commitments to stop nuclear threat and renounce hostility towards the DPRK in line with the same statement.

Secondly, it declares that the DPRK withdrawing from the NPT is totally free from the binding force of the Safeguards Accord with the IAEA under its Article 3.

The withdrawal from the NPT is a legitimate self-defensive measure taken against the U.S. moves to stifle the DPRK and the unreasonable behaviour of the IAEA following the U.S.

Though we pull out of the NPT, we have no intention to produce nuclear weapons and our nuclear activities at this stage will be confined only to peaceful purposes such as the production of electricity.

If the U.S. drops its hostile policy to stifle the DPRK and stops its nuclear threat to the DPRK, the DPRK may prove through a separate verification process between the DPRK and the U.S. that it does not make any nuclear weapon.

The United States and the IAEA will never evade their responsibility for compelling the DPRK to withdraw from NPT, in disregard of even its last efforts to seek a peaceful and negotiated settlement of the nuclear issue.