North Korea Says Its Nuclear Weapons Status Is Irreversible

North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui declared Thursday that Pyongyang’s determination to retain nuclear weapons is irreversible, rejecting a renewed denuclearization call from South Korea, the United States and Japan.

Choe issued the statement after the three countries’ top diplomats met in New York on Monday on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly High-Level Week. The ministers reaffirmed their commitment to the complete denuclearization of North Korea while calling on Pyongyang to return to dialogue.

In comments carried by North Korean state media, Choe said her government would keep nuclear weapons permanently and insisted that the country’s position as a nuclear-armed state would endure. Her language offered no indication that Pyongyang was prepared to reconsider its nuclear policy in response to the latest diplomatic appeal.

The trilateral meeting brought together South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi. Their joint statement said the path to dialogue remained open and urged North Korea to resume talks. It also reiterated opposition to revenue generation supporting Pyongyang’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs under relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions.

The three ministers additionally welcomed work by the Multilateral Sanctions Monitoring Team on alleged North Korean sanctions violations and evasions. They highlighted efforts to counter revenue from North Korean information technology workers and address cyber threats, linking those measures to the broader effort to constrain funding for prohibited weapons programs.

Choe’s response underscored the widening distance between the two sides’ stated positions. Seoul, Washington and Tokyo continue to define complete denuclearization as their goal and say negotiations remain available. Pyongyang, by contrast, is presenting its possession of nuclear weapons as permanent and beyond negotiation.

The exchange does not itself mark the opening of a new negotiation or the announcement of a new weapons test. Instead, it clarifies the diplomatic baseline as the three partners seek to maintain coordination on North Korea. The allies are pairing their offer of dialogue with sanctions enforcement and measures against cyber and overseas revenue channels, while Pyongyang is publicly rejecting the central objective those policies are intended to advance.

That gap leaves little immediate room for compromise. Any future talks would have to confront the conflict between the allies’ continued denuclearization demand and North Korea’s insistence that its nuclear status cannot be reversed.