N.Korea says US, South Korea, Japan fuel regional tensions at ASEAN

North Korea has accused the United States, South Korea and Japan of using this week's Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) meetings to stir hostility and advance a US-led security bloc, while insisting that the issue of its denuclearisation is no longer open for discussion.

The criticism by North Korea's Foreign Ministry came after a series of ASEAN-led meetings held in the Philippines involving the bloc's member states and key Indo-Pacific partners, Caliber.Az reports, citing Korean media.

Although North Korea is an ASEAN Regional Forum participant, it has skipped the gathering for a second consecutive year as Pyongyang appears to prioritise bilateral engagement with China and Russia.

"The U.S. and some countries following it are raising waves of confrontation while inciting division and antagonism, abusing the ASEAN arena as a space for justifying their evil intention, contrary to the general will of regional countries prioritizing peace, development, stability and cooperation," the ministry's spokesperson said in a commentary released by the Korean Central News Agency.

"Southeast Asia can never be a region subjected to promoting the U.S. 'security and prosperity' and the ASEAN arena should not be a field of searching for an opportunity of criticizing other countries and inciting hostility towards them," the spokesperson said.

The ministry also criticised Seoul, Washington and Tokyo for continuing to advocate North Korea's denuclearisation, arguing that the matter has already been settled.

"The U.S.-Japan-ROK futile attempt to deny and infringe upon the constitutional rights of the DPRK can neither bring up for discussion again the issue of 'denuclearization,' which was irreversibly and finally concluded, nor affect the new mechanical structure of the region being built against the background of the present position of our state," the commentary said.

The statement further described the U.S.-led security and economic alliance as the primary source of regional instability and accused it of systematically undermining the global nuclear non-proliferation regime.

At the same time, Pyongyang praised ASEAN's efforts to promote regional peace, cooperation and shared prosperity, pledging to strengthen ties with the bloc's member states while defending what it described as its sovereign rights and national interests.

"The DPRK will as ever actively promote regional peace and development and cooperation on the principle of mutual benefit and co-prosperity, thoroughly deter any attempt of the hostile forces to encroach upon the inviolable sovereign rights of the state and firmly defend the core interests of national security," it said.

By Bakhtiyar Abbasov