North Korea demands 'nuclear weapons state' status

North Korea demanded recognition on Wednesday as an official nuclear weapons state, and said it would build nuclear weapons as it deemed necessary. The comments, carried in a North Korea Foreign Ministry memorandum, also repeated calls for a permanent peace treaty with the United States to replace a decades-old armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean War.
Washington has rejected a peace treaty as long as Pyongyang refuses to end its nuclear programme. The statement said the North wanted to be on "an equal footing with other nuclear weapons states" despite quitting in 2003 the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) which sets the parameters for being a nuclear weapons state.