NORTH KOREA DECLARES NUCLEAR ARSENAL STATUS 'PERMANENT'. (PHOTO).

 North Korea declares nuclear arsenal status 'permanent'

North Korea on Monday declared that its status as a nuclear weapons state is "permanently specified" by law and "irreversible," responding to the United States’ recent push for denuclearization. The statement came after interim U.S. Charge d’Affaires Howard Solomon criticized Pyongyang’s weapons programs at a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna last week, emphasizing Washington’s commitment to North Korea’s complete denuclearization.

In its response, North Korea’s permanent mission to the U.N. office in Vienna condemned the U.S. remarks as a “grave provocation,” accusing Washington of maintaining a consistent hostile stance toward the country. Carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency, the statement reiterated that the DPRK’s nuclear arsenal is enshrined in the nation’s supreme law and cannot be reversed. Pyongyang also challenged the IAEA’s authority, citing that it has had no official relations with the agency for more than 30 years. North Korea withdrew from the IAEA in 1994 and, in 2022, formally declared itself a nuclear-armed state, later amending its constitution to guarantee the permanent expansion of its arsenal. Recently, the country has rejected efforts to restart dialogue or denuclearization talks with the U.S. or South Korea, and last week, leader Kim Jong Un oversaw a test of a new solid-fuel engine for intercontinental ballistic missiles, calling it a “significant change in expanding and strengthening the nuclear strategic forces of the DPRK.”