N Korea: no plan for nuclear tests

North Korea on Tuesday ruled out an imminent nuclear weapon test, but vowed to bolster its nuclear deterrence if the US continues to step up pressure for tougher sanctions against the country over its nuclear and missile programs. "From the beginning, we did not envisage such a military measure as a nuclear test as we planned to launch a scientific and technical satellite for peaceful purposes," a Foreign Ministry spokesman said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency. "We had access to nuclear deterrence for self-defense because of the hostile policy of the US to stifle the DPRK (North Korea) by force and we will expand and bolster it nonstop as long as this hostile policy goes on," the statement said, urging Washington to end its "hostile policy." "If the US persists in its moves to ratchet up sanctions and pressure upon us despite our peace-loving efforts, we will be left with no option but to take counter-measures for self-defense," it said. The spokesman also strongly hit back at a statement issued at a Group of Eight (G-8 summit) in Washington on Saturday, in which the global leaders condemned Pyongyang's failed long-range rocket launch on April 13 in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions, and warned that the North will face stronger punishment in case of further provocations that threaten regional stability. "Absolutely intolerable is G-8's reckless political provocation to violate the sacred sovereignty of the DPRK steeped in the bad habit of supporting the US hostile policy towards the DPRK in disregard of justice and truth," he said. Tuesday's statement came one day after Glyn Davies, US special representative for North Korea policy, warned in Seoul that North Korea will risk facing more sanctions and deepening its isolation if it conducted a nuclear test. "I think it would be a serious miscalculation and mistake if North Korea worked to engage in a nuclear test," Davies said after talks with his South Korean and Japanese counterparts. There has been speculation that the North may conduct a third underground nuclear test to try to compensate for last month's botched rocket launch. North Korea previously carried out nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009, after the UN imposed sanctions against its rocket launches.