DPRK says it will not move first on nuclear disarmament

PYONGYANG. October 24. KAZINFORM The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) said Wednesday it would not unilaterally dismantle its nuclear deterrence unless outside nuclear threats were removed, the official KCNA news agency reported.

"As action for action remains a basic principle for finding a solution to the nuclear issue on the Korean peninsula, the DPRK will not unilaterally move first," a Foreign Ministry spokesman said in a statement.

The denuclearization of the peninsula did not mean unilateral nuclear disarmament by the DPRK but a process of realizing a whole nuclear-free peninsula by removing substantial outside nuclear threats on the principle of simultaneous actions, the statement said.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said early this month Washington would be open to dialogue if Pyongyang started denuclearization first.

The National Defense Commission on Oct. 12 dismissed the U.S. request as "an intolerable mockery and insult to the army and people of the DPRK."

The statement criticized Washington for shifting responsibility to Pyongyang and urged Washington to abandon its hostile policy toward Pyongyang, Xinhua reports.

China's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said in a press briefing Wednesday that Beijing had been "in close communication with all relevant parties of the six-party talks."

China's chief delegate to the six-party talks, Wu Dawei, and his Russian counterpart, Igor Morgulov, met in Beijing Monday and exchanged views on the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and the resumption of the six-party talks, the ministry said in a brief statement.