N.Korea says boosts self-defense from hostile U.S.

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Source: Reuters

North Korea wants to press ahead with denuclearization of the Korean peninsula but is strengthening its "self-defensive capability" in the face of hostile U.S. policy, a North Korean official said on Saturday.

The U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency said earlier this week that Pyongyang was expelling agency monitors from its Soviet-era nuclear plant that produces plutonium and plans to start reactivating it next week, rolling back a disarmament-for-aid deal.

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Pak also lashed out at recent joint military exercises staged by the United States and South Korea, calling them "war drills mounting a pre-emptive nuclear strike on the DPRK."

"In the face of such military threats and a war danger, the DPRK has been strengthening in every possible way its self-defensive capability in order to safeguard the national sovereignty and peace," he said without elaborating.

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