DPRK slams G7's rhetoric on its nuclear program

SEOUL -- The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) condemned G7 (Group of 7) over its statement on the country's nuclear program, state media said on Monday.

The denunciation came after G7 foreign ministers made a statement Friday at a meeting in Charlevoix, Canada, demanding the DPRK abandon all its nuclear weapons and any other weapons of mass destruction as well as ballistic missile programs.

The DPRK expressed its serious concern over the statement, saying the country "will never tolerate any encroachment upon its sovereignty and internal affairs", the official Korean Central News Agency reported, citing a press statement issued by the DPRK Foreign Ministry a day earlier.

The G7 member states regard nuclear weapons as the main means for realizing their "aggressive and hegemonic political and military purposes", while being "hell-bent on illegal and malicious nuclear proliferation act under the pretext of 'nuclear sharing' and 'offer of extended deterrence'", the DPRK statement said.

Calling G7 "the root cause of the occurrence of global nuclear crisis and its aggravation", the DPRK statement said the Western grouping should start a "complete and irretrievable abandonment of nukes".

The country will steadily update and strengthen its nuclear armed forces both in quality and quantity in response to the nuclear threat from outside and reliably defend the peace and security of the state, the region and the rest of the world as a responsible nuclear weapons state, it added.