North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said the country will develop and deploy more powerful means of attack, while seeking to bolster up its “nuclear war deterrent more expeditiously,” the state-run media reported Monday.
In the Korean-language report, Kim stressed that the “genuine defense capability equates with powerful attack capability” at an event of taking a group photograph with officials, scientists, and workers in the defense industry, who contributed to the “successful test-launch” of a Hwasong 17 intercontinental ballistic missile on March 24.
The North Korean leader took note of the significance of test-firing the Hwasong 17 missile, labeling it as the “indispensable sacred cause of building up the country’s nuclear war deterrent.”
The state media also cited the new-type ICBM as the “core nuclear attack means representing strategic armed forces,” although the South Korean and US intelligence authorities are considering the possibility that North Korea launched a Hwasong 15 ICBM and then issued a false statement.
The North Korean leader notably expressed his expectation and conviction that Pyongyang will “perfect the country’s nuclear war deterrent more expeditiously” using the Hwasong-17 launch as a momentum.
Kim called for continuously reinforcing the North’s offensive capabilities and “nuclear war deterrent” to defend the country and repel any threat.
“Only when we possess formidable striking capabilities and overwhelming military strength that cannot be stopped by anyone, we can prevent war, guarantee national security, and deter and control all kinds of threats and blackmails by the imperialists,” Rodong Sinmun, an organ of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea, said in the Korean-language dispatch.
Kim underscored that North Korea would “continue to accomplish the goal of reinforcing national defense capabilities and develop more powerful means of attack and arm forces with them.”
Since early this year, Pyongyang has expedited the development of new weapons systems, including advanced ICBMs and hypersonic missiles, which Kim ordered to develop at the eight party congress last year as part of the country’s five-year defense development plan.
Kim emphasized that North Korea “must become strong to ward off any kind of threat, defend peace, accelerate socialist construction and take the responsibility for the security of future generations.”
“Comrade Kim Jong-un reiterated our party’s will to build up powerful national defense capabilities to protect the safety and future of our country and people with more solid and complete and stronger strategic and absolute strength,” Rodong Sinmun said.
N.Korea’s top priority, strategic choice
The party’s stated direction is in line with North Korea’s announcement Friday that the government and party have “steadfast strategic choice and determination to keep bolstering up powerful nuclear war deterrent in quantity and quality in the preparation of all kinds of potential crises that could happen in the future.”
While observing the Hwasong 17 ICBM launch, Kim was quoted as saying that he will “put top priority on concentrating the country’s all its efforts to continuously reinforce national defense capabilities,” particularly against the US.
The North Korean leader emphasized that the country would develop defense capabilities to “thoroughly prepare for the long-term confrontation with US imperialists,“ the state media reported on Friday.
South Korea’s Unification Ministry on Monday forecast that North Korea will “concentrate all the available capacity in strengthening national defense capabilities, including nuclear forces, under the pretext of preparing for a long-term confrontation with the US” in its report to the National Assembly’s Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee.
At the eighth party congress, Kim last January pronounced the ruling party’s principle and reciprocal approach to the US by “responding to power with power and goodwill with goodwill.”
But the Unification Ministry evaluated the ICBM launch as Pyongyang’s move to flesh out its confrontational stance with the Biden administration.
Pyongyang’s manifested will to reinforce striking capabilities and nuclear war deterrent comes as Seoul and Washington have detected early signs of the country’s preparations to resume a nuclear test.
Defense Ministry’s spokesperson Boon Seung-chan on Monday confirmed that the South Korean and US authorities “have recently detected unidentified activities of restoring some of the tunnels at the Punggye-ri nuclear testing site.”
Pyongyang reportedly has been constructing a shortcut to tunnel 3, which has never been used, at the nuclear test site in Punggye-ri in Kilju County of North Hamgyong Province. The South Korean authorities see it as the attempt to speed up its restoration progress.
North Korea dismantled the nuclear testing site in May 2018 ahead of the first US-North Korea summit in Singapore to implement Kim Jong-un’s commitment at a party plenum the previous month. Kim also pronounced a self-imposed moratorium on ICBM and nuclear tests at the same meeting.
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