North Korean leader Kim Jong Un stated on Tuesday (October 8) that his country will accelerate its efforts to become a military superpower with nuclear weapons and would not rule out using them if attacked by an adversary.
Kim mentioned South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol by name for the second time in a week, accusing Seoul of conspiring with Washington to destabilize the region while ignoring the reality that it lacks sufficient strategic weaponry.
“Yoon Suk Yeol made some tasteless and vulgar comments about the end of the Republic in his speech. It shows that he is completely consumed by his master’s strength,” Kim said alluding to the South’s alliance with the United States.
“To be honest, we have absolutely no intention of attacking South Korea,” he stated during a lecture at the Kim Jong Un National Defense University, a training facility for elite military professionals. “Every time I stated our position on the use of military force, I clearly and consistently used the qualification ‘if.'”
“If the enemies try to use force against our country, the Republic’s military will use all offensive power without hesitation. This does not preclude the use of nuclear weapons.”
“Our footsteps towards becoming a military superpower and a nuclear power will accelerate,” according to him.
North Korea has been developing nuclear weapons for decades and is thought to have enough fissile material to create dozens of them. It has carried out six underground nuclear explosion tests.
Last week, South Korea commemorated its annual Armed Forces Day with a spectacular military display that included a ballistic missile capable of delivering a hefty warhead and a fly-past by a US strategic bomber.
In his speech that day, Yoon warned the North against deploying nuclear weapons. “That day will see the end of the North Korean regime.”
According to KCNA, Kim made the statements on Monday, the same day the North announced that its Supreme People’s Assembly would meet to debate changing the country’s constitution. Since Monday, the news agency has not mentioned the assembly’s deliberations.
The session is being keenly watched because it is likely to pass a constitutional revision reflecting Kim’s remark that unification is no longer conceivable and that the South is an independent country and “a principal enemy”.
Such an act would formalize Kim’s departure from a decades-old aim of national unity and moves to restore relations, including a 2018 summit at which their leaders stated there would be no more fighting and a new age of peace had begun.
In an additional story, Kim sent a birthday message to Russian President Vladimir Putin, calling him his “closest Comrade” and stating that “strategic and cooperative relations” between the two countries would be elevated to a new level.