North Korean Ambassador to UK Defends Threats - East Idaho News
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North Korean Ambassador to UK Defends Threats

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GETTY W 122112 NKorea?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1366081299623iStockphoto/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) — In a rare speech given to a foreign audience, the North Korean ambassador to the United Kingdom defended Pyongyang’s response to what he called U.S. and South Korea provocations.

Speaking to the Communist Party of Great Britain, Hyon Hak-bong said: “The western media, including the UK…Reuters, the BBC, the Telegraph, the Guardian … all are talking about tensions on the Korean peninsula. The problem is that they are describing it as if the DPRK [North Korea] is provoking [it]. That is not true. We are being provoked by the U.S. and South Korea and are only responding to that provocation and their military threats.”

Hyon went on to defend the North’s threats to launch a nuclear strike, saying it was “striking back nuclear blackmail with nuclear war,” a response, he said, was supported by “peace-loving people all over the world.”

Hyon said that denuclearization was the policy of North Korea, but it could not accept denuclearization so long as the U.S. “blackmailed the DPRK with nuclear weapons.”

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

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