North Korea’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations said that Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons programme will remain a non-negotiable subject till the United States retracts its “hostile policy and nuclear threat”, Reuters reported on Thursday. Kim In Ryong made the statement during a phone call with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday.

“As long as the US’ hostile policy and nuclear threat continue, the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea]...will never place its self-defensive nuclear deterrence on the negotiation table or flinch an inch from the road chosen by itself, the road of bolstering up the state nuclear force,” Kim told Guterres, according to the North Korea mission at the UN.

Regarding the latest UN sanctions banning imports of iron ore, coal, lead concentrates and sea food from North Korea, Kim told Guterres that the resolution was a “flagrant infringement upon sovereignty and an open challenge to it”. The UN had imposed sanctions on North Korea since 2006 in response to its nuclear programme and intercontinental ballistic missile tests.

US-North Korea tensions

Tensions between North Korea and the United States have been on the boil over the past few weeks. Pyongyang had threatened to strike the US Pacific territory of Guam with medium- to long-range strategic ballistic missiles and later said it was going to hold off on the plan.

On August 9, Trump had warned the North that any threat to the US would be met with “fire and fury like the world has never seen”. He had also warned North Korea that it would “truly regret” any action against any US territory or allies.