Leader Kim Jong Un has called for an “exponential increase in North Korea’s nuclear arsenal” to confront its “undeniable enemy” South Korea and the United States, official KCNA news agency reported on Sunday.
• Also read: New year, new missile launch from North Korea
• Also read: North Korea fires a ballistic missile
After a major meeting in Pyongyang, North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party also announced that, according to KCNA, the country would “develop a new ICBM system, the main task of which will be a rapid nuclear counterattack.”
“The current situation calls for intensified efforts to massively build up military strength to fully guarantee (North Korea’s) sovereignty, security and core interests in response to troubling military maneuvers by the United States and other hostile forces,” Kim Jong Un said in a statement reported by the party assembly, quoted by the agency.
“This underscores the importance and necessity of mass production of tactical nuclear weapons and calls for an exponential increase in the country’s nuclear arsenal,” he continued.
In another story, KNCA reported Kim Jong Un’s comments that South Korea was now “completely within reach of North Korean nuclear strikes.”
Tensions between North Korea and its southern neighbor, as well as the United States and Japan, have increased dramatically in recent months. The year 2022 was marked by a record number of missile launches by Pyongyang, which notably launched its first ICBM in five years in March. Another ICBM crashed off Japan in November.
Three short-range ballistic missiles were fired again by North Korea on Saturday, and another at dawn on Sunday. KCNA referred to “an extremely large target practice involving multiple rocket launchers.”
In early November, a missile fell very close to southern territorial waters, prompting South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol to denounce “a de facto territorial invasion.”
And on December 26, five North Korean drones invaded southern airspace, even overflying the northern capital Seoul. Despite a five-hour deployment of fighter jets and helicopters, the Southern Army failed to shoot down the drones in this raid, the first of its kind in five years.
“Let’s play with nuclear weapons”
This isn’t the first time North Korea has announced mass production of nuclear bombs, said Go Myong-hyun, a researcher at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies.
“The intent is that if North Korea mass-produces nuclear weapons, even without aggressive provocations, the United States will have no choice but to one day recognize North Korea as a nuclear state,” the analyst told AFP.
“Kim Jong Un’s New Year’s message is something like, ‘Let’s play with nuclear weapons,'” he continued. According to him, the North Korean leader is trying to show that “North Korea will not ask for dialogue and that it will put pressure on South Korea and the United States, especially the United States, by strengthening its nuclear power.”
Kim Jong Un had already said at the end of November that he wanted to equip his country with “the most powerful strategic force in the world”. Two months earlier, North Korea had adopted a new doctrine making its status as a nuclear power “irreversible” and empowering it to carry out a pre-emptive nuclear strike in the event of an existential threat to its regime.
Seoul and Washington give Pyongyang intent to soon conduct a new nuclear test that would be the seventh in its history and the first since 2017.
North Korean leaders say a credible nuclear deterrent is essential to the survival of their country, which says it faces a constant threat of United States aggression.
For their part, the United States, South Korea and Japan have increased their military cooperation and joint maneuvers in the region in the face of the threat posed by North Korea, especially since the announcement of Pyongyang’s new nuclear doctrine. But this reinforcement has further angered North Korea, which views the drills as preparations for an invasion of its territory or an attempt to overthrow its regime.