A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry of the DPRK in a statement Wednesday said that the 70-odd history of the U.S. forces' presence in south Korea has been the one in which war, confrontation and escalation of tension have persisted on the Korean peninsula, adding that the U.S. forces in south Korea are a cancer-like entity harassing peace and security on the Korean peninsula and in the region and bringing the dark clouds of a thermonuclear war. The statement went on:

After the end of the Second World War the U.S. occupied south Korea under the pretext of "disarming" the Imperial Japanese Army. Since then it, pursuant to its aggressive scenario for domination of Asia and world, divided the territory of Korea and the Korean nation and has inflicted the war disaster on the Korean people.

For the past six-odd decades since the signing of the Armistice Agreement, the U.S. introduced into south Korea and its vicinity huge aggression forces including nuclear weapons and staged the DPRK-targeted war exercises under various codenames, steadily escalating the tension on the Korean peninsula and in the region.

The situation on the peninsula has constantly been put beyond control amid the evil cycle of escalation of tension. This is attributable to the arms buildup of the U.S. and the joint military exercises for aggression staged every year with the U.S. forces in south Korea as main force.

The U.S. forces in south Korea have turned into "strategic task force" capable of intervening in any dispute in the region under the signboard of "strategic flexibility" and this has made its aggressive nature clearer. Recently, THAAD which includes even countries around Korea within the radius of operation was decided to be deployed in the U.S. forces in south Korea.

The situation clearly proves that unless the U.S. forces are withdrawn from south Korea as early as possible, it would be impossible to expect lasting peace and security on the peninsula and in Northeast Asia.

We opted for nuclear weaponization to safeguard the sovereignty, right to existence and peace and security of the country to stand up against the U.S. extreme hostile policy toward the DPRK and its threat of a nuclear war, and are bolstering up the nuclear deterrence for self-defence in every way, regarding it as its strategic line to simultaneously push forward economic construction and the building of nuclear force.

The U.S. has to clearly face up to the strategic position of the DPRK which ranked itself among the nuclear powers and the trend of the times and roll back its anachronistic hostile policy toward the DPRK, replace the Armistice Agreement with a peace treaty and withdraw its aggression troops and war means from south Korea at once.