By The South Asia Times

SEOUL -  North Korea on Tuesday dismissed a recent joint warning by the United States and its allies over Pyongyang's cyber activities, describing the allegations as "nothing but a stereotyped political accusation with a sinister purpose to tarnish the image of our state".

A spokesperson for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) Foreign Ministry issued the statement through state media KCNA, responding to a joint alert issued last week by the United States, South Korea, Japan and eight other countries.

The alert accused North Korean information technology (IT) workers of using fake credentials to secure freelance and remote corporate jobs abroad, generating revenue for Pyongyang's nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programmes.

The spokesperson further criticized the "multilateral sanctions monitoring team," describing it as an "illegal ghost mechanism" organized by the West to advance "inter-camp confrontation" rather than address any genuine threat.

In a sharp rebuttal, the spokesperson turned the accusation against the United States, arguing that Washington bears responsibility for militarizing cyberspace. The statement noted that the U.S. was "the first in the world to form a cyber command" and is "hell-bent on joint cyber drills" with its allies.

Citing the expansion of US cyberwarfare capabilities and exercises such as Cyber Flag, the North Korean official argued these are "by no means for 'defense' but part of its war preparations to attain superiority in electronic information warfare".

"It is illogical that the U.S., which has possessed and operated the biggest cyber force in the world by monopolizing the core resources of cyber space, is talking about 'cyber threat' from other countries," the spokesperson stated, calling it "a mere excuse for justifying its illegal policy on placing pressure on sovereign states" .

The statement also took aim at US moves in the technology sector, particularly recent assertions by U.S. officials comparing cutting-edge AI to nuclear weapons. CIA Director John Ratcliffe has described advanced AI models as akin to "digital nuclear weapons", a comparison North Korea says "are worsening the instability of cyberspace on a global scale and causing a new security crisis".

The spokesperson accused Washington of trying to establish "hegemony in cyberspace, a treasure common to mankind," warning that such attempts "can never be tolerated".

Pyongyang vowed to "never allow any politically- and ideologically-motivated attempt of the US and other hostile forces to use the cyber issue as the means of criticism and pressure" and pledged to "defend the security and development interests of the state in all domains"