Key Points

The North's criticism came after Lee said during a speech in Washington that he and US President Donald Trump agreed during their summit on Monday (local time) to work closely to "establish peace and denuclearisation on the Korean Peninsula."

North Korea denounced South Korea for harbouring a vain hope for denuclearisation, stressing the North will never give up its nuclear weapons.

"It is a daydream for the ROK, the one and only politically poor in the world that has offered all its sovereignty to the US, to cherish an absurd hope for 'denuclearisation,' unaware of the nature of the nuclear issue of the DPRK," Yonhap news agency reported, quoting the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

The ROK is the acronym of South Korea's official name, the Republic of Korea, and the DPRK stands for North Korea's formal name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

"Lee Jae Myung should understand that if he continues to be engrossed in a wild dream about 'denuclearisation' like a 'familial disease,' it will not be helpful to anyone, to say nothing of the ROK," the KCNA said.

North Korea defended the possession of nuclear weapons, claiming that North becoming a "nuclear weapons state" has been an inevitable choice to deter threats from its enemies and adapt to a change in the global security dynamics.

"We remain unchanged in our stand not to abandon the nuclear weapons, the prestige and the honour of the state," the North said.

North Korea also called South Korea a "dyed-in-the-wool" hostile state that set the policy of confrontation against the North as its state policy, claiming the Lee administration is not an exception.

"Lee Jae Myung did not hide his real intention and revealed his true colours as a confrontation maniac," the KCNA said, saying that Lee has pretended to have a will to restore ties with North Korea.

In a speech at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington on Monday, Lee said his country will comply with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) regime and strictly keep its commitment to denuclearisation.

Calling the North a "poor but fierce neighbour," Lee said imposing sanctions alone cannot resolve Pyongyang's nuclear issues, underscoring the need to seek dialogue with it.

Before heading to the US for the summit with Trump, Lee said in an interview with Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun that he will pursue a three-stage denuclearisation plan for North Korea, starting from a freeze on the North's nuclear and missile programmes in the first stage.

Since taking office in June, Lee has vowed to mend frayed ties with North Korea and seek to resume inter-Korean dialogue. But Pyongyang has rebuffed Lee's peace overtures, saying it has no will to improve relations with Seoul.

- IANS