Statement by the Head of the DPRK Delegation at the 77th Session of the United Nations General Assembly

Statement by Head of the DPRK Delegation
H.E. Mr. KIM SONG,
Permanent Representative of the
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to the United Nations at the General Debate of the 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly

(New York, 26 September 2022)

Mr. President,

Mr. Secretary General, Distinguished Delegates,

May I begin by congratulating you, Mr. Csaba Korösi, on your election as President of the 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly. I am confident that this session, under your able stewardship, will be crowned with a success.

I also expect that the current meeting will serve as a meaningful occasion for all UN member states to find a common solution through exchanges of useful experiences in tiding over the existing challenges and crises and building a sustainable world for ourselves as well as the future of coming generations.

Mr. President,

Over the last three years since the outbreak of the once-in-a-century pandemic, this malignant virus has taken the precious lives of more than 6.53 million people.

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And it still poses a threat to the existence of humankind, making sub-variants strong in transmission and immunity evasion.

To make matters worse, the global health crisis is compounded by newly emerging infectious diseases such as monkey pox.

This year has seen immense human and material losses in all regions of the world including South Asia, Western Europe and North America due to the destructive effects of the disaster-prone abnormal weather resulting from the climate change.

This has created yet another difficult problem to the international community.

Moreover, the global security environment is plunging into the worst state since the World War II owing to the high-handedness and arbitrariness of some countries attempting to replace the current international order centered on the UN system with a “rules-based international order” governed by the unilateral and exclusive Western values.

The UN was founded in reflection of the expectations and desire of humankind who wanted to see no more repetition of the scourge of the world wars that inflicted indescribable misfortune upon them.

The present reality urgently calls for the UN to promote more than ever before cooperation and reconciliation, and unity and solidarity among its member states, and to discharge its righteous missions and role.

Mr. President,

The world was faced with challenges and difficulties of all sorts during the last year. The DPRK was no exception.

This notwithstanding, the DPRK has scored valuable successes in protecting the life and safety of the people from the threat of malignant pandemic and in achieving overall development of the country while persistently overcoming the difficulties and obstacles on its own.

I hope that the successes and experiences gained by the DPRK will make a positive contribution to the deliberation of the theme before the current session of the General Assembly for overcoming interlocking challenges and finding transformative solutions by the international community.

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The unprecedented crisis caused by the malignant virus spread throughout our state from late last April. It presented a very critical ordeal and served as an occasion to test national crisis preparedness capacity of the country.

But the DPRK government made a correct analysis of the features of the malignant virus and the circumstances of its outbreak together with the state of the public health of the country.

On this basis, it lost no time in putting forward an anti-epidemic policy in a scientific, transparent and speedy manner so as to take strategic initiative in preventing the infectious disease, and proceeded with its implementation with due care, thus achieving a decisive victory in exterminating the malignant virus in a very short period of 100-odd days.

High sense of organization and voluntary unity of action, and the social ethos of helping and caring about each other are the superiority of the political system peculiar to our country.

This served as a fundamental guarantee for successful implementation of the scientific anti-epidemic policy.

In terms of anti-epidemic and public health foundations, our country has been in a weaker condition than other countries.

But it took the contagious disease under control at the shortest period of time.

All this is the brilliant result brought by the DPRK government’s correct anti-epidemic policy and the superior socialist system.

The DPRK government is closely following the anti-epidemic situation of the neighboring countries and the world.

At the same time, it is stepping up its work to build the national anti-epidemic capacity to actively cope with any public health crisis in the present and the future and to fully secure the life and safety of the people.

Upon authorization, I take this opportunity to express thanks to those countries and international organizations that have shown their deep interest and willingness to render assistance to the anti-epidemic work of our country.

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Despite the inevitable difficulties and obstacles caused by the global health crisis and abnormal weather conditions, the DPRK government achieved new successes and progress by propelling without interruption the works for national development and stabilization and improvement of the people’s livelihood.

Industry, agriculture and all other sectors of the economy are showing the trend of steady and stable growth.

And the works to supply the people with modern apartments free of charge and provide the children and pupils all across the country with nutritious food, new school uniforms and stationery materials at state’s expense are being carried forward as planned.

Subjective and objective conditions and environment are still unfavorable.

But visible and substantial progress and advances are being made in our country in the social atmosphere which is full of vim and vigor.

This reality of our country substantiates the fact that we can successfully overcome any difficulty and challenge if we rely on the strength of the people to implement the policies that suit the reality on the ground.

Mr. President,

The successes achieved by the DPRK in its state and social development are not something which was by no means made under peaceful and quiet environment.

The security environment of the Korean peninsula is now caught in a vicious cycle of tension and confrontation due to the increasing hostility of the US and its following forces against the DPRK.

Recently, it is heading into a much more dangerous phase.

One of the trump excuses of the US and its servile forces to justify their hostile policy and military threats against the DPRK is none other than the possession of our self-defensive nuclear weapons.

A few days ago, the US president, just at this place, picked on us saying that despite their “efforts to begin serious and sustained diplomacy”, the DPRK continues to blatantly violate UN “sanctions”.

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To put it clearly, we have never recognized such “resolutions” of the UN that impose pressure because we do not abide by its “rules” made by the US unilaterally. We will not accept them in the future, too.

In addition to our country, there exist a number of countries in the world which possess nuclear weapons. But only the DPRK has been subjected to the most brigandish and brutal “sanctions resolutions”.

This is because the UN connived at and allowed the high-handedness and arbitrariness of the U.S. antagonizing the independent DPRK with an absurd reason that it differs in its ideas and systems and opposes its unjust policy.

The US is now planning even at this moment to conduct joint military exercises which draw serious concern in the surrounding of the Korean peninsula.

Obviously, this is an extremely dangerous act of igniting the fuse to drive the situation on the Korean peninsula to the brink of war.

Mr. President,

The DPRK has found another correct answer to defending its sovereignty and fundamental interests from the persistent hostile policy and military threat of the U.S. and its following forces and to ensuring peace and security on the Korean peninsula and in the region.

At the recent seventh session of the 14th Supreme People’s Assembly (SPA) of DPRK, law on the policy of the nation’s nuclear forces has been adopted with unanimous approval in reflection of the general will of all Korean people.

In direct proportion to the increase of the hostile policy and military blackmail by the US against us, our strength is bound to be built up continuously to contain them.

The US compelled the DPRK to adopt a law on the policy of nuclear forces in defiance of the US hostility.

The US should clearly understand that its heinous hostile policy against the DPRK over the past 30 years has just brought about the today’s reality and ask and answer itself and ponder over how far it would lead this situation in the future.

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Mr. President,

In his policy speech given at the Seventh Session of the 14th Supreme People’s Assembly, Comrade Kim Jong Un, President of the State Affairs of the DPRK, said that present international situation shows that the contradictions between justice and injustice and between the progressive and the reactionary, especially the power structure surrounding the Korean peninsula, have become obvious and the change from a unipolar world advocated by the US into a multipolar world is being accelerated significantly.

Today, the world is faced with not a few severe crises and challenges, but the most fundamental danger is the high-handedness and arbitrariness of the U.S. and its followers that are destroying the foundation of the international peace and stability in order to maintain the hegemonic unipolar world.

The “rules-based international order” advocated by the U.S. is no less than the U.S-centered international order permeated with unilateral and hegemonic American values. It is also an imperialistic power structure which gives precedence to the interests of the U.S. over the common interests of humankind and international law, demanding other countries’ obedience.

The U.S., having divided the world into “democratic state” and “authoritarian state”, is now forcing other countries to choose between the two and seek confrontation between the camps.

And it attempts to maintain world hegemony by expanding the bilateral and multilateral military alliance system which are legacy of the Cold War.

The prevailing reality urgently calls on the UN entrusted with maintaining global peace and security and safeguarding international justice to fully discharge its missions and role enshrined in the Charter, strictly adhering to the principles of impartiality and objectivity.

The UN is the most universal international organization bringing together all the sovereign countries.

As such, an individual country or a minority group can never represent the UN.

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All the UN activities should be duly oriented to realizing the common interests and prosperity of the member states.

To this end, the basic formula for solution of the problems should be the decision-making which reflects not the individual interests of a few countries, but the legitimate and just demands and opinions of all the member states.

The UNSC is the very organization where impartiality and objectivity are not ensured in the UN activities.

The mere fact that the UNSC makes an issue of the exercise of the legitimate right to self-defense of a sovereign state is a contradictory act as it denies the basic spirit of the UN Charter which clearly stipulate sovereign equality and non-interference as well as the recognized rules governing international relations.

The UNSC is not fully discharging its missions and responsibilities to safeguard international peace and security.

The main reason exactly lies in the unjust and double-dealing acts of the U.S. and some UN member states following in the footsteps of the U.S.

The UNSC does not say even a word about the high-handedness and arbitrariness, reckless arms build-up and war crimes of the U.S., but only picks a quarrel with the DPRK at every chance in its righteous efforts to bolster national self-defense capabilities.

All of these show that the UNSC has lost its competency and authority to act on behalf of the UN member states when it performs its duty to maintain international peace and security.

As long as the double standards, unfairness, high-handedness and arbitrariness of the U.S. are not removed, any decisions or resolutions adopted by the UNSC can neither have reasonable binding force nor contribute to ensuring global peace and security.

In order to put an end to the high-handedness and arbitrariness of specific countries including the U.S. and restore confidence of the international community in the UNSC, urgent priority should be given to the expansion and strengthening of representation of developing countries which account for the absolute majority of the UN membership.

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If the UN is to ensure impartiality and objectivity in its activities, it should regard it as a strict rule to respect the principles of sovereign equality and the rights to equality and self-determination of the people.

The US and some other UN member states are trying to unilaterally impose on sovereign states the Western values and the “rules-based international order” behind the signboards of “safeguarding democracy” and “protecting human rights”.

Such interventionist attempt constitutes a flagrant breach of the UN Charter which gives precedence to the principle of sovereign equality.

The impartial acts and double standards leaning to the unfair positions of some individual countries and the specific forces should be thoroughly eliminated.

And the principles of the UN Charter, the core of which are the sovereign equality and the equal rights and self-determination of the peoples, should be strictly observed.

The DPRK delegation takes this opportunity to extend firm support and solidarity to the government and people of Cuba in their struggle to safeguard their sovereignty and the right to development of the country in the face of the high-handedness and arbitrariness of the U.S. in a move to interfere in its internal affairs.

We also strongly demand that all the economic and financial embargoes on Cuba by the U.S. be lifted immediately as required by relevant resolutions of the UN General Assembly.

We also stand in support and solidarity with the people of Syria, Palestine and other independent countries who are struggling to repel interference of foreign forces and safeguard their independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Mr. President,

It is the invariable foreign policy stand of the DPRK government to maintain independence, peace and friendship.

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The DPRK will broadly cooperate with all countries and nations which oppose and reject aggression and interference, domination and subordination and aspire after independence and justice, transcending differences in ideology and system.

It will also develop multifaceted exchanges and cooperation even with the capitalist countries that respect our country and take friendly attitude to it.

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea sets great store by sovereign equality and international justice.

It will, in the future, too, actively join the international community in its efforts to maintain world peace and security and establish a fair and just international order. And it will fulfil its responsibilities and role in ensuring peace and security on the Korean peninsula.

Thank you.