Russian delegation to North Korea says Pyongyang will not disarm: Report
Moscow said Pyongyang does not want war, but is ‘morally ready for it’.
North Korea has said they are not prepared to disarm, a Russian delegation visiting Pyongyang said on Friday, Reuters reported.
“They said they will not disarm, there cannot even be any talk of that,” RIA news quoted Svetlana Maximova as saying in Moscow. Maximova was part of the delegation of Russian lawmakers.
Kazbek Taisayev, another member of the delegation said, North Korea does not wish for war, “but if there is a threat from the United States, then they are morally ready for that war.”
United States President Donald Trump has warned North Korea a number of times against boosting its nuclear weapons programme this year. In July, Pyongyang launched two long-range missiles that could potentially reach the US mainland. In September, it had conducted its sixth and most powerful atomic bomb test till then.
The missile launched on November 29 is probably North Korea’s longest-range weapon yet. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un had “declared with pride that now we have finally realised the great historic cause of completing the state nuclear force”. The intercontinental ballistic missile Hwasong-15 type weaponry system is a rocket tipped with super-large heavy warhead, which is “capable of striking the whole mainland of the US,” local media said.
The US had urged all nations to sever diplomatic and trade relations with Pyongyang and warned that the Korean leadership would be totally destroyed if a war were to break out.