North Korea has declared it will keep its nuclear weapons through all ages, calling its arsenal irreversible and unchanged forever, in a sharp rebuke of renewed denuclearisation calls. Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui issued the statement through the state KCNA news agency on Thursday. She dismissed South Korean President Lee Jae Myung's appeal at the UN General Assembly for Pyongyang to give up its weapons, saying the North rejected any attempt to mix confrontation with dialogue. The statement follows North Korea's test on September 22 of updated 240mm rocket launchers with a range of 115 km. US President Donald Trump has said he plans to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un again this year, after holding three summits with him during his first term. The fresh defiance closes the door, at least publicly, on the idea that sanctions pressure might bring Pyongyang back to disarmament talks. Analysts say the timing, just after the UN gathering, is aimed at setting the terms for any future engagement with Washington.