North Korea will “reexamine its nuclear issue” following the uncovering of U.S.-South Korean alleged plots to destroy a statue of North’s founding leader Kim Il-sung, Yonhap reported on Friday.
The North Korean Foreign Ministry said on Friday that it would "totally reexamine the nuclear issue" after it had uncovered “the most serious act of hostility toward” the North, referring to the arrest of Jon Yong-chol, a North Korean defector, who said he had been hired by U.S. and South Korean-linked agents to demolish a monument of Kim Il-sung.
Jon, who defected from the reclusive state in 2010, was arrested on June 18 as he was attempting to enter North Korea to blow up Kim’s monument. He said that he had been “tempted” by an agent of the South Korean Intelligence Service who had received funding from the United States, KCNA reported on Thursday.
Pyongyang did not elaborate what it implied under the “reexamination of the nuclear issue,” adding that "denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula is becoming more far-off because of the hostile policy by the U.S. against North Korea."
Seoul has dismissed the North’s accusations, calling it “some sort of propaganda efforts.”
“It is not a matter we should respond to,” spokesman for the South Korean Unification Ministry,Kim Hyung-suk,told reporters on Friday.
Pyongyang’s statement came amid speculations that North Korea's young leader, Kim Jong-un, who was promoted on Wednesday to the top military rank, would tighten control over the country through the army and resume nuclear tests.
North Korea has conducted two underground nuclear weapon tests, in 2006 and 2009.
In April, South Korean media reported that intelligence indicated North Korea was preparing a third underground nuclear test. The information was based on satellite photographs of a North Korean test site, where underground nuclear test had been previously conducted.
