Pyongyang, November 10 (KCNA) — Kim Yo Jong, department director of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea, on Tuesday made public the following press statement as regards the fact that the UN secretary-general recently called for the resumption of dialogue, expressing concern over the tensions in the Korean peninsula:

We already sent to the UNSC president a letter of the DPRK representative to the UN, which clarified the DPRK’s principled stand on the present military tensions in the Korean peninsula caused by the suspicious ” mine explosion incident” near the border with the ROK, and the letter was distributed as an official document of the UNSC.

The UN secretary-general, whose main mission is to mediate disputes, expressed “concern” and called for “dialogue resumption” as if to fulfill his duty. But in fact, he merely represented the shameless attitude of the ROK seeking to shift the blame for the incident onto the DPRK.

I express my regret over the fact that the top official of the UN, which regards impartiality and objectivity as its lifeline, took such prejudiced and irresponsible attitude as echoing the ROK’s unilateral and provocative sophism, contrary to the principle of strictly maintaining neutrality stipulated in the UN Charter.

As was repeatedly clarified, the DPRK’s fortification of its southern border never violates the UN Charter and the international laws as it is the most righteous, reasonable and regular exercise of its right to self-defence aimed at defending its territorial security from threats of the outside forces for aggression.

However the ROK is interfering in and hindering the DPRK’s project to build defensive military structures within its territory and worse still, it is continuously perpetrating the habitual provocation to lay the blame for escalated tensions on the DPRK.

The UN secretary-general’s behavior of echoing words of the provokers and patronizing them without having proper understanding of the fact is not helpful to the détente, but it may only give them more reckless courage and encourage their bad habit.

We used to clearly see to what extent he read the face of the U.S. and sensed its feelings in the past. And we vividly remember his doubling-dealing behavior of having decried every exercise of our sovereign rights as “provocation” and “threat” while persistently keeping mum about the heinous military hysteria of the U.S. and its allies.

Such ignorant and irresolute attitude of the UN secretary-general serves as a main factor of gradually pushing the UN into a state of its malfunction.

It is regretful that he is still resorting to the prejudiced and double-dealing behavior without any clear understanding of the issue of the Korean peninsula even now when his ten-year term is expiring.

If he is sincerely interested in the detente on the Korean peninsula, he should refrain from chiming in with the hypocritical attitude of Seoul to conceal its provocative nature, talking about the “resumption of dialogue”, but have a clear understanding of the incident and blame the ROK for its military provocations of seriously threatening the territorial sovereignty of the DPRK.

We make it clear once again on this occasion that if the reckless military provocations of the ROK gangsters lead to an undesirable incident in the southern border area, UN Secretary-General Guterres will never be free from the blame for it. -0-