Allow me. first of all. to congratulate Mr. Dennis Francis, on his election as President of the General Assembly at its seventy-eighth session. I am confident that his able stewardship will lead this session to a resounding success. I would also like to thank Mr. Csaba Korosi. President of the General Assembly at its seventy-seventh session, for his tireless efforts to ensure the success of the previous session.
Peace, prosperity, progress and development are the main purposes of the foundation of the United Nations, and they remain the unchanging desire of humankind, as ever. Thanks to the joint efforts of the international community, the global public health emergency is terminated. However, the world has yet to be freed from the sociopolitical instability incurred by the crisis of the malignant coronavirus disease pandemic.
This year, disaster-inducing abnormal climate events, such as El Nino, caused extremely high temperatures, droughts, destructive forest fires and heavy rains in many countries and regions around the world, resulting in enormous human and material losses. Such events once again remind us that climate change is a pressing common task to which we should no longer remain indifferent.
To make matters worse, some Member States are instigating confrontation between camps and forming blocs in pursuit of hegemony and self-profit. Because of their biased behaviour, conflict and bloodshed among nations, forces and ethnic and religious sects continue unabated in the international arena.
In order for humankind to successfully achieve the targets of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development by braving all these crises and challenges, we should seek the correct ways and means to solve problems, while defending multilateralism in the United Nations and promoting unity and cooperation among countries on the basis of international law and the fundamental principles governing international relations.
This year, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea celebrated its seventy-fifth anniversary, in commemoration of the 75 years in which it has firmly safeguarded the dignity and sovereignty of the country and nation and has laid a solid foundation for self- respect and prosperity. Even in the face of the manifold trials and challenges, our people are firmly convinced of a thriving future in our increasingly powerful nation.
In recent years, global challenges and trials of various kinds created innumerable hardships and difficulties for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, as well. But my Government achieved encouraging, progressive and proud successes, one after another, in all sectors, including the economy and the improvement of people’s living standards, overcoming those difficulties on its own initiative through its own positive efforts.
As the malignant disease mutates into new variants with high transmission rates and immunity evasion and continues to threaten the existence and development of humankind, the Government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is controlling and managing its anti-epidemic strategy in a stable manner, relying on a science-based and transparent anti-epidemic policy and the strong unity of its entire people to take voluntary action. The Government is also accelerating the building of the State’s anti-epidemic capacity to successfully counter any future health crisis in a proactive manner. It has put considerable effort into developing all sectors of the country in a simultaneous and balanced way. Therefore, all sectors of economic construction are showing a clear trend towards growth, and the agricultural sector has opened prospects for increased stable production even under the unfavourable weather conditions.
Providing the people with affluent and civilized living conditions is the overriding principle that governs the activities of the Workers’ Party of Korea and the Government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Their people-first policy has ensured that numerous modern houses were distributed to ordinary workers free of charge this year, as they were last year, and that all children in nurseries and kindergartens are regularly given dairy products on a daily basis at the expense of the State through a well-established and orderly system.
The Government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea has made dynamic efforts to cope with ever-worsening climate change and abnormal, disaster-prone weather conditions. As a result, the protection and improvement of the country’s land and ecological environment are aggressively promoted
on a nationwide scale, and the material and technical foundations needed to build State resilience against disasters are being laid with a long-term perspective.
The achievements made in national economic development and improvement of the people’s livelihood, even amid harsh conditions, is the welcome result of the patriotic and devoted efforts of the entire Korean people, who strive to quickly bring about a happy future for themselves and for posterity by dint of self-reliance and self-development. The Korean people, who aspire to a full and perfect realization of the priority goals of overall national prosperity, must first and foremost defend the security environment and development interests of the State. However, the highhanded and arbitrary practices of some Member States have created an unpleasant situation on the Korea peninsula this year, which runs counter to the theme of the current session and its orientation towards peace, prosperity and progress for all. Owing to the reckless and continued nuclear showdown hysteria of the United States and the forces of its followers. 2023 was recorded as an extremely dangerous year, in which the military security situation in and around the Korean peninsula was driven closer to the brink of a nuclear war.
Since the beginning of the year, the United States and the Republic of Korea have been making hysterical remarks of confrontation, using such terms as “end of the regime” and “occupation of Pyongyang”, in flagrant violation of the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations. They staged their largest-ever joint military exercises of a clearly aggressive nature on our doorstep — one after another — including the Freedom Shield. Ssangryong. Combined Joint Fire Annihilation Drill and Ulchi Freedom Shield operations. After fabricating the so-called Nuclear Consultative Group in April, which is committed to the planning, operation and execution of a pre-emptive nuclear strike against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the United States has moved on to the practical stage of realizing its sinister intention to provoke a nuclear war. frequently dispatching strategic nuclear submarines and strategic nuclear bombers carrying nuclear weapons to locations in and around the Korean peninsula for the first time in decades. The formation of the tripartite military alliance of the United States. Japan and the Republic of Korea has also put into practice its long-sought ambition for an Asian version of NATO, thereby introducing a new Cold War structure to North-East Asia.
The current dangerous situation on the Korean peninsula is attributable to the United States and its attempt to realize its ambition for hegemony by all means, overestimating its powers. But due responsibility also lies with the incumbent Republic of Korea ruling forces, which seek to impose the scourge of a nuclear war on the nation, obsessed with pro-United States submission and fratricidal confrontation. Only a few days ago. in this Hall. Yoon Suk Yeol unreasonably denounced our just and legitimate measures to enhance national defence capabilities, and went as far as to make provocative remarks about the normal development of our cooperative relations with our friendly neighbours (see A/78/PV.6). The development of equal and reciprocal relations among independent sovereign States is not an issue for the Republic of Korea to interfere in. as it is no more than a colony of the United States. Ever since the current puppet Government came to power, the whole area of the Republic of Korea has literally turned into a military colony, a powder keg of war and a military outpost of the United States, due to its sycophantic and humiliating policy of depending on outside forces. Now the Korean peninsula is in a hair-trigger situation and is in imminent danger of the outbreak of nuclear war.
The reckless acts of the United States and the forces of its followers are having an irreversibly destructive impact on the regional political and military situations and security structure, as they drive the situation of the Korean peninsula towards an actual armed conflict. Given the prevailing circumstances, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is urgently required to further accelerate the build-up of its self- defence capabilities in order to defend itself and make the country more secure. It is only too natural that, in response to an increasing number of reckless military moves and intensified provocations by the hostile forces that threaten the sovereignty and security interests of our State, our endeavours to enhance national defence capabilities should increase in direct proportion. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea remains steadfast and unchanged in its determination to firmly defend the nation’s sovereignty and security interests and the well-being of the people against the hostile threats from outside. The United States and the forces of its followers should look back on the consequences of the hostilities they have committed to date, which tarnish the image of our State and gravely infringe upon our security and fundamental interests, and they should make the right choice based on the likely result.
Comrade Kim Jong Un. President of the State Affairs of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, said that we should not tolerate the imperialists’ moves for aggression and war against sovereign nations; instead, we should struggle to ward off the danger of war and defend global peace and security. Now the United States is arbitrarily judging other countries by its unilateral hegemonic values and is imposing factional confrontations on them, creating deep divisions and conflicts among States. As the United States seeks political and military collusion on an unprecedented scale in order to allegedly cement an alliance and revive and expand on a global scale such an aggressive military bloc as NATO, whose days are numbered, the world is now faced with the worst security crisis since the Second World War.
No country or region in the world can be said to be secure as long as high-handed acts are taken by domineering forces that pose a threat to other nations’ security, while scheming and inciting bloody confrontations, coups d’etat and wars in different parts of the planet in pursuit of their hegemony and expansion. The current reality urgently demands that the United Nations strictly adhere to the principles of impartiality and objectivity and fulfil responsibly its mission and role, as enshrined in the United Nations Charter, in keeping with its mission to save the present and future of humankind from the scourge of war and realize international justice. The issue to be addressed before anything else in United Nations activities is to ensure that the Security Council is not allowed to be used as an instrument of specific forces for pursuing their geopolitical purposes, but strictly observes the principles of objectivity, impartiality and equity, befitting its heavy responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security.
It was only a month ago that the Security Council disgracefully convened meetings (see S/PV.9406) to debate as separate agenda items the legitimate right to a satellite launch and a human rights issue relating to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, a full- fledged State Member of the United Nations. The decision by the Security Council to discuss the just and independent right of a sovereign State and to groundlessly take issue with the human rights situation of an individual country amounts to nothing more than an insult to the spirit of the Charter of the United Nations and the deliberate neglect of the Council’s mission. Such actions bear absolutely no relation to the Council’s mandate of maintaining international peace and security. On the contrary, the Security Council has never expressed concern about the nefarious nuclear war exercises carried out by the United States and its acolytes against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, or about their continued deployment of strategic assets, both of which clearly constitute a threat to the peace and security of the Korean peninsula and the rest of the world.
In defiance of strong protests and criticism from the international community. Japan discharged nuclear- contaminated water into the ocean, thereby causing irrevocable damage to the safety of humankind and the marine ecosystem. Nevertheless, the Security Council remains silent, and some permanent members do not even hesitate to resort to the irresponsible act of instigating it.
The Security Council’s failure to uphold its inherent duty and responsibility to defend global peace and security has its root cause in the unfair behaviour of. and the double standards applied by. the United States and some Member States obedient to it. If the Security Council does not observe the principles of sovereign equality and respect for sovereignty enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, it will never live up to its reputation of representing the collective will of the Member States, and instead will earn the Council only the shameful name of inner chamber of the United States.
In order to prevent the high-handedness and arbitrariness of specific forces, including the United States, in the Security Council, it is essential to reform the irrational Western-led structure of its membership, and to that end to expand and strengthen the representation of developing countries, which make up the absolute majority of the United Nations membership. The Security Council should also stop discrediting sovereign States, interfering in their domestic affairs and fomenting confrontation and division by discussing issues that are detrimental to the Council’s mission and mandate.
The delegation of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea avails itself of this opportunity to extend its full support to Cuba, which unwaveringly bears aloft the banner of socialism in the face of the heinous sanctions and blockade and the subversive schemes of the United States. We also strongly reject and condemn the United States economic, commercial and financial
blockade against Cuba — a decades-long economic genocide — and that country’s designation as a State sponsor of terrorism, and we demand an immediate end to both policy measures. At the same time, we call for the immediate, complete and unconditional withdrawal of all coercive and unjustifiable measures against Syria. Venezuela. Iran and other independent countries. We also express our steadfast support for. and solidarity with, the Palestinian people in their righteous cause to regain their legitimate national rights, including the establishment of an independent State with East Al-Quds as its capital.
Independence, peace and friendship are the foreign policy ideas consistently championed by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Moreover, in the future we will forge unity and cooperation with all countries and nations that aspire to independence and love justice, while opposing and rejecting aggression, intervention, domination and subordination, regardless of differences in ideas and systems. We will also expand and develop diversified exchanges and cooperation with capitalist countries that respect our country and are friendly to us.