North Korea was "entirely right when it opted for having access to nukes", the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said in a commentary, adding the communist country needed to protect itself.
The North has long justified having the weapons saying they are to counter a similar threat from the United States.
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), a global nuclear safeguard accord, was not doing its job properly, the official commentary late on Saturday said.
"This compelled (North Korea) to pull out of the NPT and have access to nuclear deterrent legitimately in order to protect the sovereignty and security of the country," it said.
The isolated and impoverished North withdrew from the NPT in 2003.
Chosun Ilbo, South Korea's biggest-selling newspaper, reported Thursday that the North appeared to be preparing for another nuclear test, citing an unidentified government source.
US satellites had detected movements of personnel and vehicles at the site where Pyongyang carried out its first two nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009, the report said.
US State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Thursday that another atomic weapons test would be "provocative" but said he did not have any evidence to support the South Korean report.
Pyongyang said on Saturday it was willing to resume stalled six-nation nuclear disarmament talks but would not be "hasty" because the United States and some other parties were "not ready".
China, the North's sole major ally and economic lifeline, is pressing to restart the forum, which groups the two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia, and began in 2003.
But prospects for renewed negotiations have been clouded by South Korean and US accusations that the North torpedoed one of Seoul's warships in March with the loss of 46 lives, a charge Pyongyang denies.
The Chinese military delegation paid tribute to the North's late president Kim Il-Sung Sunday on the second day of a four-day trip to mark the 60th anniversary of Chinese forces' intervention in the Korean War, KCNA said.
After arriving in the capital on Saturday, Guo Boxiong, vice chairman of China's Central Military Commission, said close ties between the two countries would be handed down through the generations.
Jong-Un's status as leader-in-waiting was effectively made public after Pyongyang made him a four-star general and gave him key ruling party posts late last month.
Kim Jong-Il has visited China twice this year. The last visit, in August, was seen by many analysts as a bid by the North Korean leader for Chinese support for the dynastic succession.
Beijing fears the collapse of North Korea and resulting instability on its borders and thus provides heavy aid and trade support to its neighbour, experts say.
The South's Yonhap news agency meanwhile reported that Seoul and Washington have shelved a plan to stage a joint exercise involving a US aircraft carrier later this month in the Yellow Sea.
The exercise was cancelled over fears that it could heighten regional tensions ahead of the upcoming G20 summit in Seoul, it said.
China has bristled at the idea of a US aircraft carrier group patrolling waters near its coast.
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