In an article in its state-run newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, Kim Jong-il and the North Korean regime claim that the United States is trying to smear Pyongyang's international reputation, and that the Hermit Kingdom is willing to give up nuclear weapons, as long as the threat of a U.S. nuclear attack is removed.

Pyongyang: U.S. diplomatic boss [Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice] in a recent radio interview, crying over North Korea’s "nuclear threat," ranted nonsense about how North Korea cannot join the international community unless it abandons nuclear weapons. Categorically refuting this trash, a Rodong Sinmun commentary on Monday said that the United States is putting forth an absurd argument, and never stops tongue-lashing North Korea over the "nuclear issue."

The analysis continues:

It is nonsensical for the U.S. to make an issue of North Korea’s "nuclear threat." And linking North Korea’s "renunciation of nuclear weapons" with its "joining the international community" is just as nonsensical.

—BBC NEWS VIDEO: Chinese Arm-Twisting Convinces North Korea to Agree to Resume Talks, 00:01:44

—NPR NEWS AUDIO: LA TIMES Reporter Gets Rare Glimpse Inside the Very Bleak Hermit Kingdom, 00:06:44

The U.S. is technically at war with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, and no one can tell when U.S. plans for a preemptive nuclear attack on North Korea will be carried out. It was painstaking work for North Korea to gain access to nuclear weapons, having to confront manifold difficulties imposed by tightened sanctions and a blockade by the enemy.

But Pyongyang had no option but to choose this course of action, to defend its ideas and its system, security and sovereignty from U.S. moves to stifle it with nukes. It was only a defensive step, for all intents and purposes, to defend itself. Herein lays the reason North Korea has built its own nuclear deterrent.

But the United States is turning a blind eye to the purpose of North Korea’s accession of nuclear weapons. Wantonly distorting and exaggerating the truth, the U.S. is trying to mislead public opinion into believing that North Korea harbors "nuclear ambitions" in a bid to brand it a "nuclear criminal."

We do not intend to possess nuclear weapons forever. If the U.S. nuclear threat is removed and its hostile policy to "bring down the system" of North Korea withdrawn, not a single North Korean nuclear weapon will be needed. Since North Korea has been compelled to possess nuclear weapons by the increasing nuclear threat from the U.S., it is quite logical that for the issue to be settled, the U.S. nuclear threat and its hostile policy must be retracted. This is the critical issue to the settlement of the nuclear issue.