North Korea says won't be bound by nuclear testing pledge

• United States had ignored its year-end deadline for nuclear talks, says North Korea.
• Speaking as the envoy from the People's Democratic Republic of Korea (DPRK), he accused the United States of applying "the most brutal and inhuman sanctions".

GENEVA: North Korea on Tuesday said that as the United States had ignored its year-end deadline for nuclear talks, it no longer felt bound by commitments, which included a halt to its nuclear testing and the firing of inter-continental ballistic missiles.

"We found no reason to be unilaterally bound any longer by the commitment that the other party fails to honour"," Ju Yong Chol, a counsellor at North Korea's mission to the United Nations in Geneva, told the UN-backed Conference on Disarmament.

Speaking as the envoy from the People's Democratic Republic of Korea (DPRK), he accused the United States of applying "the most brutal and inhuman sanctions", adding: "If the US persists in such hostile policy towards the DPRK there will never be the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula".

"If the United States tries to enforce unilateral demands and persists in imposing sanctions, North Korea may be compelled to seek a new path," Ju added.