North Korea will continue building up its nuclear deterrent to counter US aggression, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has said – but the degree to which it expands its weapons program will depend on the US’ attitude.

Accusing Washington of insincerity regarding discussions about the partial lifting of sanctions, Kim held up America’s “gangster-like demands” as the reason no agreement had yet been reached between the two countries.

The more the US stalls for time, Kim said, the more it will find itself “helpless in the face of North Korean power.” Pyongyang has a “new strategic weapon” up its sleeve, he warned, and time is running out before his government will be moved to take “shocking actual action.”

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North Korea will no longer maintain its self-imposed ban on nuclear and long-range missile tests, because the US has continued to stage military drills with South Korea.

"The DPRK took pre-emptive and crucial measures of halting its nuclear test and ICBM test-fire and shutting down the nuclear-test ground for building confidence... the US, far from responding... with appropriate measures, conducted... joint military drills"

Kim had pledged to take a “new path” if the US did not relax sanctions on North Korea by the end of the year.

“[I] can not give up the security of our future just for the visible economic results and happiness and comfort in reality now that hostile acts and nuclear threat against us are increasing."

He also pledged to “continue to develop strategic weapons unless the US drops [its] hostile policy.” Kim has repeatedly balked at the total denuclearization that Washington demands before it is willing to consider sanctions relief, given the dire fates that have befallen other US enemies – Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi and Iraq’s Saddam Hussein – who gave up their weapons.

The US, meanwhile, has refused to budge on sanctions, with the State Department confirming to Korean media on Tuesday that it would not back a joint Chinese-Russian proposal recently circulated among the UN Security Council to remove some of the sanctions that have suffocated North Korea for years. Insisting that Pyongyang is not only “threatening to conduct an escalated provocation” but is “continuing to maintain and advance its prohibited weapons of mass destruction” programs, Washington nevertheless claims to be committed to diplomacy – just on its terms.

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