NORTH KOREA - Nuclear Weapons Status Irreversible

North Korean officials said the country’s status as nuclear state “has become irreversible,” despite efforts by the West to negotiate an end to the production of those weapons, according to state media.

“The position of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea as a nuclear weapons state which has been permanently specified in the supreme and basic law of the state has become irreversible,” North Korea’s Permanent Mission to the U.N. said in a press statement, according to the Korean Central News Agency.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, the intergovernmental body for nuclear cooperation, has no “legal right and moral justification” to interfere with what North Korea consider an “internal affair,” the mission’s press statement said.

The secretive state accused the United States of violating its own stated obligation of preventing nuclear proliferation “while concentrating more than anyone else on nuclear power buildup.”

-abcnews.go.com, 15 September 2025

Commentary: Communist North Korea is an isolated state; while it is a member of the UN and many other international organizations, the state apparatus is extremely defensive when it comes to any critical statements from the outside world. Based on the CIA Factbook, the population suffers extreme poverty. GDP per capita is only $600 (2023 estimate).

When it comes to military spending, estimates range from 20–30% of annual GDP. Regarding military personnel, there are as many as 1.3 million active-duty Korean People’s Army (2025).

The UN Security Council has passed about a dozen resolutions sanctioning North Korea for developing nuclear weapons and related activity. That, apparently, does not deter this relatively small nation of only 26.4 million people. Compare this to South Korea, with a population of 51.5 million, life expectancy of 83.4 years, and per capita GDP of $50,400 (2023).

When the Berlin Wall fell on 9 November 1989 (which today is celebrated on the 3rd of October as German Unity Day), many voices were heard the world over that Korea is next. Yet not so until this day.

While we do not know the future, as far as the nations of the world are concerned, we do know our future: “Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God” (Ephesians 2:19).