DPRK condemns US-ROK 'Nuclear Consultative Group' meeting

SEOUL -- A senior official of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Thursday condemned a meeting of the US-Republic of Korea "Nuclear Consultative Group" held on Tuesday, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported.

"In particular, the hostile forces posed the most undisguised and direct nuclear threat to the DPRK by bringing an Ohio-class strategic nuclear submarine to the Pusan Port operation base, which means strategic nuclear weapons have been deployed on the Korean Peninsula for the first time after 40 odd years," the KCNA quoted a statement by Kang Sun Nam, minister of National Defence of the DPRK, as saying.

Among the nuclear-armed nations of the world, the United States is the only country which openly made it its policy to use its nuclear weapons against a specific country, said the statement, adding that the military security situation on the Korean Peninsula has "undergone a fundamental change due to the reckless military moves of the US and its followers."

The statement warned that "the ever-increasing visibility of the deployment of the strategic nuclear submarine and other strategic assets may fall under the conditions of the use of nuclear weapons specified in the DPRK law on the nuclear force policy."

The armed forces of the DPRK will responsibly carry out their important mission for defending the country's sovereignty, territorial integrity and fundamental interests and preventing a nuclear war on the Korean Peninsula and in the Northeast Asian region, said the statement.