DPRK rejects NATO's call to abandon nuclear ambition

North Korea on Wednesday dismissed a recent statement from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) that urged the communist state to give up its nuclear ambitions, saying the matter is none of their business.

The communist state did not raise any threats against the North European military alliance, as it frequently does when addressing South Korea or the United States, but sought to belittle NATO, claiming the latter did not even clearly understand the issue at hand.

"It is something beyond normality that the NATO whose mission is to 'defend peace and security in the North Atlantic region' poke its nose into the Korean issue to which it is not entitled," the North's official Korean Central News Agency said in a commentary.

It came about a week after the North Atlantic Council, the top decision-making body of the NATO, condemned North Korea "in the strongest possible terms the continued development by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) of nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs, and its inflammatory and threatening rhetoric."

Pyongyang accused NATO of again serving the United States, claiming the statement was only aimed at supporting South Korea and the United States' efforts to topple its communist regime.

"NATO, a body bereft of independence and playing into the hands of the South Korean puppet forces, should not say this or that about the DPRK as it is unaware of the essence of the issue, but had better stop functioning as a tool harassing international peace and security," it said.

(YONHAP)