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DPRK slams S. Korean president's speech at UN

27 September 2014 19:42 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. South Korean President Park Geun-hye's first keynote speech at the UN General Assembly calling for tearing down the world's last wall of division on the Korean Peninsula was censured by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Saturday, APA reports quoting Xinhua.

Park is "the primary root cause of deteriorating north-south relations and fostering mistrust and confrontation," a spokesman for the Policy Department of the DPRK National Defense Commission was quoted as saying in a statement carried by the official news agency KCNA.

According to the statement, Pyongyang rejected Park's call for abandoning its nuke weapons and improving its human rights record, and reaffirmed its resolve to develop the nuclear program, which it called the country's "treasured sword."

It also refused to acknowledge any resolution adopted by the United Nations, saying the UN has become but a "voting machine" of the United States and its followers.

In her speech at the UN General Assembly on Wednesday, Park called on the international community to help tear down the world's last remaining wall of division separating the north and the south of the Korean Peninsula.

Park proposed building corridors within the 4-km-wide and 250-km-long Demilitarized Zone between the two sides as the first step in the process of allowing the two peoples to "live in natural harmony within a single ecosystem."

Park urged Pyongyang to give up its nuclear program and choose a road of reform and opening-up, saying that should Pyongyang choose to do so, South Korea, together with the international community, will provide strong support for developing the DPRK economy.

The president also called for global attention to addressing the DPRK human rights issue, which Pyongyang dismissed as an issue that does not exist at all in the country.

The DPRK on Friday slammed Park's remarks at the ongoing 69th UN General Assembly, describing her speech as "a blatant challenge to the dignity and social system of the DPRK and an extremely dangerous provocation driving the bedeviled north-south relations into a total catastrophe."