SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea, which insists it needs a nuclear deterrent against a U.S. invasion, threatened today to strengthen its “deterrent force” if the United States pursues policies the communist state deems hostile.
“If the United States more desperately pursues its hostile policy to isolate and stifle (North Korea) under the pretext of the ‘nuclear issue’ and ‘human rights issue’ … the latter will react to it by further increasing its self-defensive deterrent force,” an unnamed spokesman for the North Korea’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.
The spokesman condemned the North Korean Human Rights Act, a recent U.S. law aimed at improving human rights in the country.
“By nature the U.S. is the worst human rights graveyard in the world,” the spokesman said. “This is clearly proved by what happened in Iraq.”
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