North Korea's ambassador to the United Nations "will not bargain over nuclear status"

Kim Sung, North Korea's ambassador to the United Nations, said he would not go back to the past over legitimate self-defense and would not haggle over the prestige of being a nuclear power.

Ambassador Kim said in a speech at the U.N. General Assembly at the U.N. headquarters in New York that North Korea will not go back to the distant past over the right to self-defense, the legitimate right of a sovereign state.

No matter who is in power in the United States, North Korea will deal with the national substance of the United States, and the United States will have to deal with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, indirectly insisting on recognizing North Korea as a nuclear power.

Ambassador Kim also rationalized North Korea's development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, saying that the United States is accusing the exercise of legitimate self-defense by a sovereign state of no harm to anyone as a threat and provocation.