DPRK lashes out at US-ROK Washington Declaration

SEOUL -- A senior official of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) has hit out at the Washington Declaration issued by the United States and the Republic of Korea (ROK) after a summit between leaders of the two countries, state news agency KCNA reported Saturday.

Kim Yo-jong, vice department director of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea, denounced the declaration as "a typical product of extreme anti-DPRK hostile policy reflecting the most hostile and aggressive will of action," and said "it will only result in making the peace and security of Northeast Asia and the world be exposed to more serious danger," according to the KCNA.

"The more the enemies are dead set on staging nuclear war exercises, and the more nuclear assets they deploy in the vicinity of the Korean peninsula, the stronger the exercise of our right to self-defense will become in direct proportion to them," the statement concluded.

The United States and the ROK jointly issued the Washington Declaration on April 26 as one of the outcomes of the ROK's President Yoon Suk-yeol's visit to the United States.

According to reports, the declaration says that the United States will upgrade the extended deterrence it provides to the ROK, including enhanced consultation over a nuclear crisis, increased military exercises and training activities, table-top simulation, the establishment of a new Nuclear Consultative Group, and a further expansion of the US regular visibility of strategic assets to the Korean Peninsula.