UNITED NATIONS, September 29. /TASS/. Pyongyang will not comply with obligations on denuclearization under the joint statement with the United States until Washington guarantees complete security to North Korea, Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho said on Saturday addressing the 73rd United Nations General Assembly.
"Without any trust in the US, there will be no confidence in our national security and under such circumstances there is no way we will unilaterally disarm ourselves first," he said.
"The DPRK government's commitment to the denuclearization is solid and firm. However, it is only possible if the US secures our sufficient trust towards the US," he added.
The North Korean foreign minister has pointed out that Pyongyang has more reasons to distrust Washington that vice versa, since the US is the only country that used nuclear weapons in real war.
"If both countries harbor mistrust towards each other, being obsessed with the past, then the recent DPRK-US Joint Statement cannot escape the same fate of failure as all the previous agreements between the two countries," he said.
Ri Yong-ho urged Washington to comply with the agreements and that "will, in the end, be in the best national interest of the US and should maintain new method for solving the DPRK-US relations."
Along with this, accusations against North Korea are employed by some US politicians "with the sole purpose of attacking their political opponent," the minister stressed.
According to the North Korean top diplomat, Pyongyang takes measures to build confidence, but cannot see any reciprocal steps from Washington.
"The key to consolidating the peace and security in the Korean peninsula is to thoroughly implement the DPRK-US Joint Statement adopted in June at the historic DPRK-US summit in Singapore," Ri Yong-ho said stressing that Pyongyang’s commitment "to thorough implementation of the DPRK-US Joint Statement is unwavering."
Before the Singapore summit of the United States and North Korea, "the DPRK government [the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, known as North Korea] took significant goodwill measures such as stopping nuclear and ICBM tests, dismantling the nuclear test site," the foreign minister said
According to the North Korean top diplomat, Pyongyang "continues to put in efforts to trust-building."
"However, we do not see any corresponding response from the US," he said.
"On the contrary, instead of addressing our concern for the absence of peace regime in the Korean peninsula, the US insists on the ‘denuclearization-first’ and increases the level of pressure by sanctions to achieve their purpose in a coercive manner," Ri Yong-ho said.
He said the United Nations Security Council could play a positive role in normalization on the Korean Peninsula by easing sanctions imposed on Pyongyang.
"The implementation of the DPRK-US Joint Statement is a shared responsibility of the DPRK and the US; at the same time the UN also has a role to play in it," he said.
"The UN Security Council that was once so eager to express ‘concern’ to the tense situation on the Korean Peninsula keeps silence even now about the precious momentum for peace on the Korean Peninsula which has been achieved this year," the foreign minister said.
Ri Yong-ho said with regret that despite the fact Pyongyang had halted nuclear and ballistic missile tests, "even a word in those [Security Council’s] resolutions remains unchanged to say nothing about [sanctions] being totally removed or eased."
On June 12, 2018, Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un held a historic meeting - the first-ever between a sitting US president and a North Korean leader - in Singapore. The summit resulted in a joint statement signed by the two leaders. North Korea committed to work towards denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in exchange for security guarantees from the United States.
In December 2017, the United Nations Security Council unanimously passed a resolution toughening sanctions against North Korea. The document further restricts supplies of crude oil and oil products and insists all countries expel North Korean labor migrant in a span of 24 months. The resolution envisages other restrictions that concern exports of industrial equipment, heavy machinery and transport vehicles to North Korea and imports of North Korean commodity. In 2017, the UN Security Council approved imposing three sets of restrictions on Pyongyang in response to its missile and nuclear tests.