Statement by Head of the DPRK Delegation 

H.E. Mr. Kim Song,

Ambassador\and Permanent Representative of the 

Democratic People’s Republic of Korea 

to the United Nations

At the General Debate of 

the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly

30 September 2024, New York

Mr. President,

Mr. Secretary-General,

Distinguished representatives,

Allow me, first of all, to congratulate you, Mr. Philémon Yang, on your election as President of the 79th session of the UN General Assembly.

I am confident that your able stewardship will lead this session to an excellent fruition.

Mr. President,

The current session of the UNGA is convened at a time when the existence\and development of humanity is faced with unprecedented serious crises\and challenges.

Armed conflicts\and bloodshed continue unabated in various parts of the world, with the situation in Gaza still going on for almost a year, taking the lives of tens of thousands of innocent civilians\and creating the most appalling humanitarian crisis since WWII.

To make matters worse, ever-worsening abnormal weather conditions like extreme high temperature, drought, torrential rain\and flood cause massive human\and material losses, coupled with such problems as food\and energy crisis, unemployment\and poverty\and social inequality.

In addition, confrontation, bloc-forming\and unilateralism prevail over the spirit of cooperation, unity\and multilateralism which run through the UN Charter, thus creating obstacles to tiding over international crises.

Therefore, I expect that this general debate, true to its theme\and spirit, will serve as a significant occasion in overcoming the challenges\and crises threatening humanity’s existence\and development, defending the UN-centered multilateral system\and promoting peace\and advancement of the present\and future generations.

Mr. President,

I consider it important for each\and every UN member state to fully discharge its responsibility with a view to overcoming present crises\and promoting social progress\and better standards of living as stated in the UN Charter.

From this viewpoint I would like to outline the principled stand of the DPRK government\and its efforts directed to achieving socio-economic development, defending regional peace\and stability,\and realizing international justice.

Today, the world is faced with challenges, with no exception to the DPRK as well. However, valuable successes are being recorded in the socio-economic field, thanks to the correct line of the government\and its steady implementation.

First, the DPRK government puts it as the primary state policy to keep supplying the children under school age with dairy products\and provide school children with essential stationary at state’s expense. As a result of the strenuous execution of the policy, we witness continued improvement in the quality of children\and education.

We also find an outcome of our effort to achieve sustainable development of the national economy. The trend of growth continues in various fields such as light industry\and agriculture\and remarkable successes are registered in promoting the welfare of the people including the work to provide all residents of both urban\and rural areas with new dwelling houses free of charge.

In particular, the DPRK government newly adopted the policy for regional development\and is paying primary attention to its practical implementation.

The DPRK government’s regional development policy aims to effect epoch-making enhancement in socio-economic, material\and cultural standards on a nationwide scale by bridging the gap between the capital\and provincial cities, between urban\and rural areas\and develop all sectors\and regions of the country in a balanced\and simultaneous way within a 10-year timeframe.

This will be an active contribution of the DPRK to the attainment of the SDGs on achieving sustainable development for everyone, ensuring no one is left behind.

The DPRK’s regional development policy is firmly assured of its feasibility as it is based on scientific accuracy\and justness.

In 10 years’ time, the world will witness a completely changed development of the DPRK.

Mr. President,

Aforementioned work for socio-economic development in the DPRK is never done in a peaceful\and normal security environment.

Peaceful\and stable external environment is very dear to us who aspire to overall development\and prosperity of the state.\and yet, the security threat forced upon usrom the outside is all the more increasing with the passage of time.

Last year, I stated on this podium that the situation on the Korean peninsula was nearing to brink of a nuclear conflict.

One year has passed since then. Now the security landscape of the Korean peninsula is quite differentrom that time\and becoming much more acute.

From the beginning of this year, the U.S.\and its allies have staged joint military exercises one after another with various code-names such as “Freedom Shield”, “Freedom Edge”\and “Combined Air Drill” in the vicinity of the DPRK, thus heightening military tension\and hostile atmosphere in the region.

Much more serious is the fact that the anti-DPRK nuclear war machine “nuclear consultative group” engineered by the U.S.\and ROK last year is now in full operation\and simulation nuclear war drills are conducted to put into practice an actual attempt to use nuclear weapons against the DPRK.

Joining here are the member states of NATO which is an outside force beyond the region\and exclusive military bloc. They are strengthening military cooperation with the U.S.\and ROK abusing the signboard of “UN Command” which should have been dismantled decades ago in accordance with UNGA resolution. They are stirring up military confrontation still further by deploying warships\and aircrafts in the hot spot region of the Korean peninsula.

Such being the case, they blame us for “threatening” them\and the peace\and stability of the region\and beyond with nuclear weapons.

Then, who had developed\and used nuclear weapons against humanity for the first time in history?

Who has introduced nuclear weapons into the Korean peninsula in the last century\and posed nuclear threat to the DPRK over the century?

Who on earth is talking unhesitatingly about the “end of regime” of a sovereign state\and maintaining first-use of nuclear weapons against the DPRK as its national policy?

It is not that the DPRK’s possession of nuclear weapons makes the U.S. hostile towards us. The truth is that the U.S. hostility\and nuclear threat to the DPRK for over 70 years compelled us to make a historic decision to possess nuclear weapons.

Our nuclear weapons were just made\and exist to defend ourselves. As such, any talk about our “nuclear threat” only proves a conceived hostility toward the DPRK.

The security environment of the Korean peninsula is bound to be intricately complicated through to the next generation as well, unless the U.S.\and its followers change their confrontation\and aggressive nature.

Under such circumstances, it is an indispensable exercise of sovereign rights for the DPRK to maintain powerful strength capable of defending national security interests\and guaranteeing peaceful development.

The situation on the Korean peninsula has not entered into war even though it is fraught with extreme tension. It is totally attributable to our country’s powerful war deterrence which helps stave off threat of aggression\and keep the balance of power in the region.

Therefore, we continue to increase our war deterrence capabilities not onlyrom our obligation to ensure national security but alsorom our mission to maintain peace\and security in the region\and beyond.

Comrade Kim Jong Un, President of the State Affairs of the DPRK, said that we can choose either dialogue\or confrontation but we should go further in getting ourselves fully prepared for confrontation. This is the review\and conclusion drawnrom the 30-year-long DPRK-U.S. relations, he said.

When it comes to the right to self-defense, a legitimate right of a sovereign state, we will never go back to the point in the far-off past. When it comes to the national prestige, we will never bargain over it with anyone for it was gained through the bloody struggle of the entire Korean people.

Whoever takes office in the U.S., we will only deal with the state entity called the U.S., not the mere administration. Likewise, any U.S. administration will have to face the DPRK which is differentrom what the U.S. used to think.

Mr. President,

It is the invariable external policy of the DPRK government to champion justice\and peace, aspire after progress\and development\and promote friendship\and solidarity. This is also the idea running through the UN Charter.

From this viewpoint, the DPRK government stands strongly against the acts of dividing international political arena into two camps with unlawful double standards, giving precedence to their hegemonic interests\and disturbing peace\and stability.

At present, many factors obstruct attainment of the SDGs set forth by the UN. The most critical among them are the high-handedness, arbitrariness\and double standards of the U.S.\and certain UN member states.

Since October last year, the indiscriminate massacre by Israeli authorities has claimed more than 40 thousand Palestinian civilian lives in Gaza Strip including many children\and women,\and thus exposed a nation to complete extinction.

The UN exists to prevent the recurrence of the scourge of war that had inflicted untold sufferings to mankind. It is really shameful\and deplorable that such act against humanity has persisted for one year.

It is hardly imaginable that one state is immune to any censure\and sanction even after committing such a horrible massacre. This is entirely due to the patronage of the U.S., a permanent member of the UN Security Council.

The U.S. has vetoed UNSC resolutions on bringing peace to the Middle East on as many as 5 occasions overriding the wishes of the international community to see the ethnic cleansing stopped by its ally. This is how the U.S. has discredited the authority of UN\and incited crime against humanity.

This notwithstanding, the U.S. is branding as “threat”\and “provocation” the legitimate exercise of the right to self-defense by a sovereign state which did not do any harm to anybody.

As for the Ukrainian situation dragged on for almost 3 years by the U.S.\and western countries, they are shifting the responsibility on other countries even though it was the result of “eastward expansion” of NATO\and provision of lethal equipment amounting to astronomical sum of money to their ally.

The reason behind the U.S.’s abusive invectives about the normal development of relations between other countries is, in fact, to vindicate its unprincipled political\and military support to its ally\and justify the forming of military alliances on a global scale.

Justice\or injustice is judged according to whether the actor is pro-U.S.\or an independent country\and the United Nations is misused for political aims of an individual country. Such reality should no longer be tolerated\and allowed.

I once again express serious concern with strong denunciation over the fact that peace\and security in many parts of the world are seriously threatened\and the spirit of the UN Charter is debased by the arbitrariness\and high-handedness of a single arrogant permanent member state of the UN Security Council.

I also express deep condolences to the Palestinian victims of the Israeli genocide\and their bereaved families\and extend unchanged support\and solidarity to the Syrian people in their struggle to regain the occupied Golan heights\and safeguard territorial integrity.

Mr. President,

The reform of the present global governance regime should be\oriented to realizing impartiality, equity\and justice.

The United Nations will regain its sacred image only when it strictly adheres to the principles of sovereign equality, non-interference in internal affairs, impartiality\and objectivity\and eliminates high-handedness\and arbitrariness as well as biased double standards practices in all its activities in conformity with the purposes\and principles enshrined in the UN Charter.

Mr. President,

A just, peaceful\and prosperous world remains the desire of the DPRK as ever.

It is the consistent stand of the DPRK government to make positive efforts with independence against imperialism as its immutable first national policy to realize international justice based on the respect for sovereignty, non-interference in internal affairs, equality\and mutual benefit\and establish a new international\order.

The DPRK will, in the future, too, cooperate with all countries\and nations which oppose\and reject aggression, interference, domination\and subordination\and aspire to independence\and justice, transcending differences in idea\and systems. We will also develop diversified exchanges\and cooperation with the countries that respect our country\and take friendly attitude to us.

Thank you.