"We 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 added, "and nothing has changed between the days when we maintained the line of simultaneously pushing forward the economic construction and the building of nuclear force and now, when we struggle to direct our efforts to the economic construction owing to the U.S. gangster-like acts."
He also slammed the U.S. for refusing to lift sanctions in order to advance their historic, yet stalling, denuclearization-for-peace process, but appeared to leave the door open for future negotiations if Washington recalibrated their approach toward Pyongyang.
