North Korea announced this week that it will “counter nuclear with nuclear” after talks with the United States failed to reach an agreement to end the country’s nuclear weapons program, according to NK News, an American website based in South Korea.

“In order to eliminate the nuclear threats from the U.S., the [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s] government made all possible efforts either through dialogue or in resort to the international law, but all ended in vain,” the North Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs Institute for Disarmament and Peace said in a report on Thursday. “The option left was only one, and that was to counter nuclear with nuclear.”

Fox News notes that the country’s state-run media chose to release the statement on the 70th anniversary of the start of the Korean War. 

NK News reports that North Korea will continue to build weapons in order “to contain the persistent nuclear threats from the U.S.”

North Korea recently bombed a liaison office in a North Korean border city used to hold meetings with South Korea.

"Demanding North Korea surrender its nuclear weapons first before it gets any sort of benefit is just plain naive," Harry Kazianis, senior director of Korean Studies at the Center for the National Interest, told U.S. News and World Report. "If you want to get North Korea to come to the bargaining table, Washington must offer an action for action approach where both sides get benefits simultaneously, tackling the smallest issues first. That is the only way we will ever get to stability on the Korean Peninsula.

"Anything else guarantees we go from crisis to crisis for decades to come."

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