North Korea’s Kim calls for expanding nuclear arsenal to ‘overtake the world’

Seoul, June 23 (IANS) North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has called for efforts to further increase his country’s nuclear arsenal “with a goal of overtaking the world,” Pyongyang’s state media reported Tuesday.

According to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) convened the second plenary meeting of its ninth central committee for three days from Saturday, presided over by leader Kim, to assess how the country’s policies have fared in the first half of the year and review the agenda set at a major party congress in February.

The meeting reaffirmed North Korea’s commitment to expanding its nuclear forces, describing them as “the core of the military sovereignty” of the nation and “the pivot of implementing the strategy for deterring or fighting a war.”

The report said the plenary session unanimously decided that “to thoroughly exercise the position of a nuclear weapons state is the most correct and unique way to actively and confidently cope with the unpredictable international military and political situation getting complicated in multiple ways.”

“With the nuclear technology as a basis, more extensive, innovative and encouraging plans would be carried out with increasing speed,” said the report, adding Kim “set forth tasks to dynamically carry out the work to increase powerful defense assets without pause in our own way and with a goal of overtaking the world.”

The meeting also pledged to accelerate the construction of a 10,000-tonne-class strategic guided missile cruiser, which was decided by the party in April.

Pyongyang reiterated its policy of designating South Korea as its most hostile nation and sharply criticised the military alliance between Seoul and Washington, including the Nuclear Consultative Group (NCG), a key nuclear deterrence meeting held earlier this month.

The report denounced the NCG as “a nuclear war body whose purpose is to attack” North Korea, claiming the meeting “drew detailed nuclear war scenarios, including war mode, sequence of missions, drills and operation element.”

According to the KCNA, Kim stressed the need to fortify “the southern border” and build new naval bases and other military infrastructure to bolster the country’s defense.

North Korea has recently emphasized the need to fortify its border with South Korea. Last month, Kim convened a meeting with commanding officers of the armed forces, calling for reinforcement of front-line units, following his previous order to deploy a new self-propelled howitzer along the border by the year’s end.

In a major party leadership reshuffle, Jo Yong-won was elected secretary of the party’s central committee, effectively restoring him to one of the most powerful positions in the country. Jo has previously served as chairman of the standing committee of the Supreme People’s Assembly, the country’s parliament.

Meanwhile, Kim Jae-ryong was removed from the presidium of the party politburo, party secretary and department director posts. The reason for the reshuffle was not immediately clear, though it may be linked to the referral of Park Hee-chol, deputy director of the Korean People’s Army’s general political bureau, to authorities on corruption allegations.

The meeting also spotlights coal as a strategic pillar of the economy, calling for a nationwide overhaul of the sector and its mining communities, Yonhap news agency reported.

Kim stressed that eliminating the “centuries-old backwardness” of the industry was “a strategic issue of weighty significance” not only for the current five-year plan but also for the country’s longer-term economic development.

The plenary meeting confirmed the party’s “unshakable will” to bring Kim’s vision to reality, declaring that the modernisation of the coal sector would be “of weighty historic significance in rapidly boosting the overall economy.”

The February congress, the country’s most important political gathering and the first since 2021, ran from Feb. 19-25. It set a five-year course for the economy, defense and diplomacy, and reshuffled the party’s top leadership.

–IANS

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