The spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) issued the following statement on the 30th.

Recently the US, Australia and other member states of the so-called "Multilateral Sanctions Monitoring Team" and the European Union (EU) invoked unilateral sanctions measures against the DPRK and fabricated and issued a "joint statement" talking about the will for "denuclearization" and the implementation of the UN Security Council (UNSC) "sanctions resolutions" against the DPRK.

This is another example reminding us that the habitual rampage of the hostile forces seeking to deny the constitutional status of our state and outlaw the development of normal interstate relations still remains a deep-rooted poison and malignant tumor harming the soundness of international relations.

The MFA of the DPRK brands as a grave act of infringement upon sovereignty and resolutely condemns and rejects the despicable conspiratorial schemes of the US and its followers to justify their malicious and wicked anti-DPRK hostile policy by attaching unjust and groundless pretexts.

Sanctions and pressure may work on the weak, but not on us.

The stereotyped sanctions commotion of the US and the West can have no effect whatsoever on the DPRK's status as a nuclear-weapon state and cannot for a moment stagnate our ceaseless might, which they fear and must fear even more in the future.

Time is proving that, just as the so-called "denuclearization of Korea" has reached its final, irrevocable conclusion both in theory and in practice, so the "anti-DPRK sanctions" are born with the destiny of following in its wake.

On this occasion we once again sound a warning to the hostile acts of the EU and the member states of the "Multilateral Sanctions Monitoring Team", including the Republic of Korea and Japan, which are actively joining the US commotion of sanctions and pressure against the DPRK, and make it clear that they will bear due responsibility for it.

We will not bother to stop the US and the West from plunging themselves into an impasse from which they cannot extricate themselves by clinging to the sanctions warehouse that has already run dry.

It is not we who are isolated, but the US and the Western camp, which lack the means and ability to prove the effectiveness of sanctions any longer and even lack the judgment and courage to admit their strategic failure.

The will of our state is firm and immutable to reliably guarantee national sovereignty and national interests with powerful force in coping with the ever more blatant sinister hostile intentions of the US and its follower countries and to strive for the establishment of international relations in which justice and fairness are realized.

The DPRK will never overlook or connive at the malicious intentions of the hostile forces to restrict and hinder the development of normal and mutually beneficial cooperative relations between sovereign states, and will thoroughly safeguard the dignity of the state and its rights and interests of development through the responsible exercise of sovereignty.