The top North Korean official for U.S. relations has stressed that the North will continue conducting nuclear tests and missile launches as long as the U.S. upholds its policy of pressure and punishment on the regime.

Han Song-ryol, the director-general of the department of U.S. affairs at North Korea's Foreign Ministry held an interview with the Associated Press in Pyongyang on Friday, and called on Washington to stop its "military threats, sanctions and economic pressure."

He told the AP that without doing so, the U.S. is telling North Korea to reconcile while it's putting a gun to the North's forehead. He said the U.S. must accept the trend of the times and North Korea's strategic position and withdraw its hostile policy.

He said his country is now a nuclear state and that in the past, it was threatened by the United States with its nuclear weapons but now the U.S. is being threatened by the North's nuclear weapons.