By Kim Young-jin

Seoul and Washington rejected North Korea’s claim it was a nuclear state Thursday and called on the Stalinist state to come in line with international norms.

Pyongyang made the assertion in an amendment to its constitution, a move revealed a day earlier by North Korean website Naenara (my country).

“We do not recognize North Korea as a nuclear state,” a unification ministry official said on condition anonymity. “On the basis of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), it does not hold nuclear status. The international community is unified on this.”

U.S. State Department Spokesman Mark Toner said earlier that Washington would never accept Pyongyang as such and called on it to fulfill its 2005 pledge to denuclearize in exchange for aid and security guarantees.

The amendment, approved in April at a meeting of the rubber-stamping Supreme People’s Assembly, credited late despot Kim Jong-il with the development, saying he transformed the North into a “nuclear power and invincible military superpower.”

The move paved “the ground for the construction of a strong and prosperous nation,” the preamble to the amendment reads. The document was revised to reflect the work of the late Kim, who died in December.

Watchers said the move confirms the continuation of the regime’s nuclear policy under the leadership of Kim’s youngest son, Kim Jong-un.

“It’s a clear sign that North Korea’s national strategy is to maintain the program,” Park Young-ho, an analyst with the Korea Institute for National Unification, said.

Pyongyang walked out of the NPT in 2003 and has provoked the region with its nuclear and missile tests seen as efforts to develop a long-range nuclear deterrent. The U.N. Security Council has slapped it with two rounds of sanctions for the efforts, and expanded the measures after the North’s failed April 13 rocket launch.

Regional players remain in a pickle over how to handle Pyongyang, which has vowed to maintain the program, despite the North apparently holding off on a third nuclear test.

Last month, Chinese news agency Xinhua reported that Pyongyang had no intention of carrying out a third nuclear test, citing a report by the North’s media. Beijing is seen as putting heavy pressure on the North to prevent the move, which the international community has pledged a tough response to.

Park said the amendment did not bode well for denuclearization efforts.

“For the international community, it goes contrary to the notion that the nuclear issue can be dealt with in a peaceful way. We may have to respond differently than in the past,” he said.

Pyongyang’s most recent rocket launch broke a deal with the United States under which it stood to receive 240,000 tons of food in exchange for denuclearization steps. The agreement had seemingly paved the way back to regional disarmament talks, seen as the best way to mitigate the North’s provocations.