Following is the text of a report by the North Korean official news agency KCNA, which carried the announcement.

The government of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea in a statement today declared its withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and its total freedom from the binding force of the safeguards accord with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

The statement was issued as regards the fact that a grave situation where the sovereignty of the Korean nation and the DPRK's security are seriously violated is prevailing on the Korean Peninsula, owing to the US vicious hostile policy towards the DPRK.

Though we pull out of the NPT, we have no intention to produce nuclear weapons

In the statement the DPRK Government vehemently rejected the 6 January "resolution" of the IAEA, considering it as a grave encroachment upon the sovereignty of the DPRK and the dignity of the Korean nation.

The statement further says: As it has become clear once again that the US persistently seeks to stifle the DPRK at any cost and the IAEA is used as a tool for executing the US hostile policy towards the DPRK, we can no longer remain bound to the NPT, allowing the country's security and the dignity of our nation to be infringed upon.

No IAEA monitoring

Under the grave situation where our state's supreme interests are most seriously threatened, the DPRK Government adopts the following decisions to protect the sovereignty of the country and the nation and their right to existence and dignity:

Firstly, the DPRK Government declares an automatic and immediate effectuation of its withdrawal from the NPT, on which "it unilaterally announced a moratorium as long as it deemed necessary," according to the 11 June, 1993, DPRK-US joint statement, now that the US has unilaterally abandoned its commitments to stop nuclear threat and renounce hostility towards the DPRK, in line with the same statement.

Secondly, it declares that the DPRK, withdrawing from the NPT, is totally free from the binding force of the safeguards accord with the IAEA under its Article 3.

'Self-defensive measure'

The withdrawal from the NPT is a legitimate self-defensive measure taken against the US moves to stifle the DPRK and the unreasonable behaviour of the IAEA following the US. Though we pull out of the NPT, we have no intention to produce nuclear weapons and our nuclear activities at this stage will be confined only to peaceful purposes such as the production of electricity.

If the US drops its hostile policy to stifle the DPRK and stops its nuclear threat to it, the DPRK may prove through a separate verification between the DPRK and the US that it does not make any nuclear weapon.

The United States and the IAEA will never evade their responsibilities for compelling the DPRK to withdraw from the NPT, by ignoring the DPRK's last efforts to seek a peaceful settlement of the nuclear issue through negotiations.

BBC Monitoring, based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.