The situation prevailing on the Korean peninsula greatly affects the preservation of the peace and security in Asia, he said, and continued:

The situation on the peninsula remains serious.

The escalation of the tensions there is not helpful to us.

Nevertheless, there are some people who do not know who should be forced to restraint oneself to defuse the tensions.

Some people consider the DPRK's access to nukes as a factor of escalating the tensions, but it was not its choice.

The DPRK's decision to have access to nuclear deterrent was the one it was compelled to make due to the U.S. hostile policy, ceaseless military pressure and nuclear threat that lasted for more than half a century since its founding.

Our nukes are the war deterrence in the true sense of the words.

Some people claim that the rocket firing drills of the army of the DPRK escalate the tensions but they had better understand, to begin with, which side stages decisively larger-scale and more frequent military drills to threaten the other side.

The joint military drills being staged by the U.S. in south Korea are extremely provocative in their nature and go beyond in their tolerance limit in the danger of war. The recent joint military drills involved landing, air strikes and commando operations to "occupy Pyongyang".

In order to defuse the tensions, the DPRK government put forward proposals calling for stopping each other's military hostilities several times this year alone and has made efforts to do so.

However, the U.S. has not yet responded to them.

It is long since the DPRK put forward more fundamental ways for defusing the war danger on the peninsula and in its vicinity and ensuring lasting peace.

In the belief that to defuse the tensions on the peninsula and reunify the country by federal formula is the way of substantially contributing to the peace and security in Asia, the DPRK will make every possible sincere effort to do so.