North Korea said its nuclear power status is “permanently enshrined” in its law and reiterated that it is “irreversible,” state media reported Monday, condemning the United States for demanding its denuclearization.

“Recently, at a meeting of the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United States has once again committed a grave political provocation by calling our possession of nuclear weapons illegal and calling for denuclearization,” the North’s mission to the UN said in a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency.

North Korea’s status “as a nuclear-weapons state, permanently enshrined in the nation’s supreme fundamental law, has become irreversible,” the statement said, stressing that the country has not had “official relations” with the atomic watchdog in more than 30 years.

Disqualifies the IAEA

The IAEA “has neither the legal authority nor the moral justification to interfere in the internal affairs of a nuclear-weapon state that exists outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty,” it said.

North Korea withdrew from the IAEA in 1994 after a standoff over nuclear inspections, alleging that Washington was using the agency to infringe on its sovereignty.

The statement comes after North Korean leader Kim Jong-un visited the country’s weapons research facility last week, where he stated that Pyongyang will “push forward the policy of simultaneously advancing the construction of nuclear forces and conventional armed forces.”

North Korea has repeatedly stated that it will never give up its atomic weapons.

In September 2023, the North Korean regime passed a constitutional amendment to enshrine its nuclear policy, while Pyongyang ordered an acceleration of nuclear weapons production to deter what it called “provocations” by the United States.