SEOUL: North Korea will rapidly accelerate the development of its nuclear arsenal, leader Kim Jong Un said while overseeing a vast military parade showcasing his most powerful intercontinental ballistic missiles, state media reported on Tuesday.
Despite biting sanctions, North Korea has doubled down on Kim’s military modernisation drive, test-firing a slew of banned weapons this year while ignoring US offers of talks — as analysts warn of a likely resumption of nuclear tests.
Dressed in a white military uniform trimmed with gold brocade, Kim watched as tanks, rocket launchers and his largest ICBMs were paraded through Pyongyang late on Monday for the founding anniversary of North Korea’s armed forces, state media reported.
Kim vowed to “take measures for further developing the nuclear forces of our state at the fastest possible speed,” according to a transcript of his speech at the event published by the official Korean Central News Agency.
“The nuclear forces, the symbol of our national strength and the core of our military power, should be strengthened in terms of both quality and scale,” he said.
Repeated negotiations aimed at convincing Kim to give up his nuclear weapons programmes have come to nothing, and he warned on Monday that he could use his atomic arsenal if North Korea’s “fundamental interests” were threatened.
“The fundamental mission of our nuclear forces is to deter a war, but our nukes can never be confined to the single mission of war deterrent,” he said, according to the KCNA transcript.
North Korea had paused long-range and nuclear tests while Kim met then-US president Donald Trump for a bout of doomed diplomacy, which collapsed in 2019.
Last month, Pyongyang test-fired an ICBM at full range for the first time since 2017, and satellite imagery shows signs of activity at a nuclear testing site, which was purportedly demolished in 2018 ahead of the first Trump-Kim summit.
Kim’s messaging on the purpose of his nuclear weapons could be a response to South Korea’s new hawkish, conservative President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol, who takes office May 10, analysts said.
“It’s noteworthy that Kim is now talking more specifically about the purpose of his nuclear weapons,” said Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies.
“South Korea’s president-elect Yoon has threatened a pre-emptive strike on Pyongyang if needed, and Kim seems to be indirectly saying that he may have to respond with nuclear tactics should Yoon indeed proceed.”
Cheong Seong-chang, a senior researcher at the private Sejong Institute, said Kim could have been sending a coded message by wearing his white uniform with the marshal’s star — North Korea’s highest military rank.
“It symbolises his ultra-strong stance to the incoming Yoon Suk-yeol administration, who has identified the North as its enemy and said it plans to develop the ability to launch pre-emptive strikes.” – AFP