The military might of a country represents its national strength. Only when it builds up its military might in every way can it develop into a thriving country.

North Korea will never give up its arsenal. It's all that is keeping us alive. Look at Saddam Hussein - and we never forget that North Korea was named as part of the "axis of evil" a year before the United States invaded Iraq. Do you think we would be stupid enough to believe American promises after all this? We are a nuclear power. That is not negotiable. We are willing to talk about limits freezes - but we would need to be given something in return security, in the form of diplomatic recognition by Washington and guarantees of nonaggression from China, Japan and the United States.

My nation faces a fundamental challenge - survival. The regime is more threatened than ever before. My forefathers had it easy. The Great Leader, my grandfather, ruled with the support of the world's other superpower at the time, the Soviet Union, as well as our China. But today, the Soviet Union is history and China has become more integrated with the Western system. And the United States seeks regime change in my country. And yet, we have survived with our ideology and system intact. How? Because we have built a protection for ourselves in the form of nuclear weapons.

Want to know what’s more destructive than a nuclear bomb? Words.

The revolution is carried out by means of one's thought.

The entire United States is within range of our nuclear weapons, and a nuclear button is always on my desk. This is reality, not a threat.

Past records of inter-Korean relations show that confrontation between fellow countrymen leads to nothing but war.