North Korea says it is "not interested at all" in an Iran-like dialogue with world powers to give up its nuclear capabilities.
The Foreign Ministry said on July 21 that North Korea's nuclear program is an "essential deterrence" against U.S. foreign policy toward the country.
North Korea "is a nuclear-weapons state both in name and reality and it has interests as a nuclear-weapons state," it added.
The United States and five other powers struck a deal with Tehran on July 14 under which sanctions against Iran will be gradually removed in return for the country accepting long-term curbs on its nuclear program.
Pyongyang has also been subjected to UN, U.S., and EU economic sanctions over its nuclear and ballistic-missile programs.
