North Korea’s top envoy to Moscow has stressed that, as a sovereign state, his country will never give up its right to use nuclear power for peaceful purposes.

In an interview with Russia’s RIA Novosti News Agency Thursday, Ambassador Pak Ui-chun said the North's right to use nuclear energy for civilian purposes is not a matter that that can be dictated by others.

In particular, Pak said Washington’s refusal to allow Pyongyang’s pursuit of peaceful nuclear energy flies in the face of its professed acknowledgement of North Korea's sovereignty.

The top diplomat denounced the U.S. for insisting on the denuclearization of the North alone, and not that of the entire Korean Peninsula.

Pak emphasized the North's right to pursue a peaceful nuclear energy program through light-water reactors in particular.

An international project to build two light-water reactors in the North was suspended after the United States accused the North of running a secret uranium enrichment program in October, 2002. Pyongyang denies the U.S. accusation.