North Korea accuses US, S. Korea, Japan of using ASEAN forum to 'incite' hostility, push denuclearization

SEOUL, July 24 (Yonhap) -- North Korea on Friday accused South Korea, the United States and Japan of exploiting this week's Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) forum to "incite" hostility by seeking to promote a U.S.-led security bloc and force the regime to denuclearize despite it no longer being a viable path.

The North's foreign ministry made the comments in a dispatch carried by its state media, referring to the series of meetings that took place in the Philippines this week led by the 11-member ASEAN and key Indo-Pacific partners.

North Korea is also a participant of the ASEAN meetings, but it has skipped the forum for two consecutive years, as it appears to focus on bilateral diplomacy with China and Russia.

"The U.S. and some countries following it are raising waves of confrontation while inciting division and antagonism, abusing the ASEAN arena as a space for justifying their evil intention, contrary to the general will of regional countries prioritizing peace, development, stability and cooperation," the ministry's spokesperson said in a commentary released by the Korean Central News Agency.

"Southeast Asia can never be a region subjected to promoting the U.S. 'security and prosperity' and the ASEAN arena should not be a field of searching for an opportunity of criticizing other countries and inciting hostility towards them," the spokesperson said.

The spokesperson claimed that Seoul, Washington and Tokyo continued to assert the North's denuclearization, a move it said has been "irreversibly and finally concluded."

"The U.S.-Japan-ROK futile attempt to deny and infringe upon the constitutional rights of the DPRK can neither bring up for discussion again the issue of 'denuclearization,' which was irreversibly and finally concluded, nor affect the new mechanical structure of the region being built against the background of the present position of our state," the commentary said. ROK stands for the Republic of Korea, South Korea's official name.

The spokesperson went on to assert that the U.S.-led security and economic bloc is the real threat to be feared and watched, also accusing it of "systematically" violating the global nuclear non-proliferation regime.

Regarding ASEAN, North Korea expressed a positive view of its role and efforts to promote co-prosperity in the region, committing to further developing relations with its member states, while firmly responding to "hostile forces" attempting to undermine its rights and interests.

"The DPRK will as ever actively promote regional peace and development and cooperation on the principle of mutual benefit and co-prosperity, thoroughly deter any attempt of the hostile forces to encroach upon the inviolable sovereign rights of the state and firmly defend the core interests of national security," it said, referring to North Korea by its official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.