‘N.Korea will never beg for China’s friendship’

TIL Desk/World/Seoul/ North Korea slammed China for criticising its nuclear weapons programme, saying it will never “beg” for Beijing’s friendship, Pyongyang’s state-run news agency said on Thursday. According to the North’s Korean News Agency, the remark was in response to reports in Beijing’s official media that North Korea’s nuclear tests pose a threat to China’s national interests.

“Those commentaries claimed that North Korea poses a threat to the security in the northeastern region of China, by conducting nuclear tests less than 100 km away from its border with China,” a news report as saying. “They even talked rubbish that North Korea strains the situation in northeast Asia and offers the US excuses for deploying more strategic assets’ in the region.”

It noted that the Chinese media called for tightening sanctions against North Korea and offered Pyongyang a choice between protracted isolation and national security and between breaking the friendship and dismantling its nukes if it does not want a confrontation with China.