North Korea asks US to recognise it as nuclear state

In a statement that made no mention of the Republican candidate Donald Trump’s electoral victory, the Kim Jong-Un regime urged the US to abandon the “failed”  policies of President Barack Obama. “The US should officially recognise North Korea as a de facto nuclear weapons state and follow the same policy towards it as those pursued with other nuclear weapons states,” Pyongyang said in an editorial published by the state-run agency KCNA. 

It added that it had demonstrated the “sanctions slapped by the Obama administration against North Korea proved unworkable and it is impossible to force it to dismantle its nukes,” Efe news reported. 

However, neither the editorial nor other articles in North Korea’s state-run media made any mention of US President-elect Donald Trump, who is expected to modify US policy towards North Korea. Until now, the US had adopted a policy of tough economic and trade sanctions against North Korea to choke its economy and force it to abandon its nuclear programme. However, despite the sanctions, North Korea has continued developing its nuclear programme and conducted its fifth nuclear test in September.