North Korea is not supplying the Syrian government with pilots and arms, a spokesperson for North Korea’s Foreign Ministry has said.

Speaking to the state news agency KCNA on Thursday, the spokesperson said that media reports suggesting the government of Bashar al-Assad had been using North Korean pilots and weapons against rebel insurgents were an attempt to slander the DPRK.

The reports, the spokesperson said, were “foolish plots of hostile forces to tarnish the image of the peace-loving DPRK and cover up their criminal acts of blocking the peaceful settlement of the Syrian situation.”

The position of the DPRK, he said,