Pyongyang, November 21 (KCNA) -- Choe Son Hui, foreign minister of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), released the following press statement on Sunday:

UN Secretary-General Guterres on November 18 again termed the DPRK's legitimate and just exercise of the right to self-defence against the U.S. grave military threat "provocation".

Recently I was often made to take the UN secretary-general for a member of the U.S. White House or its State Department.

I express my strong regret over the fact that the UN secretary-general has taken a very deplorable attitude, oblivious of the purpose and principles of the UN Charter and its proper mission which is to maintain impartiality, objectivity and equilibrium in all matters.

We recently warned the UN secretary-general to consider the issue of the Korean peninsula on the basis of impartiality and objectivity.

I think he is well aware that a series of provocative nuclear war rehearsals, staged by the U.S.-led allied forces with involvement of nuclear strategic assets in and around the Korean peninsula all the year round, have brought the present touch-and-go situation of confrontation to the peninsula.

The DPRK made clear that it could not but take indispensable action for self-defence under the worrying security environment in the Korean peninsula and the region caused by the U.S. and its vassal forces' dangerous military cooperation against the DPRK. It also sent a clear signal that the U.S. should not make rash act if it does not want disastrous consequences.

Nevertheless, the UN secretary-general shifted the blame for the case onto the DPRK rather than the U.S. which provoked the former. This is most upsetting and deplorable to me.

The international community should lift its voice that if peace and stability in the Korean peninsula and the region are to be maintained, it is important to constrain and stop the provocative military actions of the U.S., the root of all disasters occurring in the region.

The UN secretary-general connived at the fact that the U.S. and its vassal forces were referring the DPRK's exercise of its inviolable sovereignty to the UN Security Council to put pressure on it. This clearly proves that he is a puppet of the U.S.

I remind you that the DPRK is watching the moves of the U.S. and the UNSC with clear counteraction in mind. -0-

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