DPRK denies paid interviews accusation

PYONGYANG - The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) denied on Friday that the country's top leader Kim Jong Un plans to give paid interviews to Western media, the official KCNA news agency reported.

An unnamed spokesman for the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea rejected a report by the South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo that Kim will accept interviews from Western media for a million US dollars, saying that "the conspiratorial paper has hurt the dignity of its supreme leadership."

"In order to make it sound plausible, the paper made a clumsy excuse that it is based on a source well informed of the situation inside the north," the spokesman said, accusing Chosun Ilbo of hatching plots against Pyongyang amid preparations of an upcoming festival.

The DPRK will settle accounts with those who defame the supreme leadership's dignity and the anti-DPRK tricksters are due to pay a dear price for their crimes, the spokesman said.

The DPRK is preparing for a grand festival on June 27 to mark the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Korean War Armistice Agreement.