North Korea said its status as a nuclear-armed state is “permanently enshrined” in its law and “irreversible,” state media reported on Monday, condemning the United States for demanding its denuclearization.

“Recently, at a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Board of Governors, the US once again committed a grave political provocation by branding our possession of nuclear weapons as illegal and clamoring about denuclearization,” the North’s UN mission said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

The status of North Korea “as a nuclear-armed state, enshrined permanently in the nation’s supreme and fundamental law, has become irreversible,” the statement said, noting that the country has not had “official relations” with the nuclear watchdog for more than 30 years. (AFP)