North Korean leader Kim Jong Un says he wants to “exponentially” increase the country’s nuclear arsenal.
At a meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party, Kim said “overwhelming military power” was needed to defend the national interest against threats from countries such as South Korea and the United States.
He said the two countries were trying to “isolate and stifle” the North, with US nuclear assets deployed in South Korea, a situation that is “unprecedented in human history,” he said.
The official Korean Central News Agency quoted Kim as saying: “The prevailing situation calls for redoubling efforts to overwhelmingly strengthen military force… in response to worrying military moves by the United States and other hostile forces.”
He described South Korea as “our undoubted enemy”, adding that it is “bent on the reckless and dangerous accumulation of weapons”.
“It stresses the importance and necessity of mass production of tactical nuclear weapons and calls for an exponential increase in the country’s nuclear arsenal,” it added.
“We have declared our firm willingness to respond with a nuclear weapon for a nuclear weapon and an all-out confrontation for an all-out confrontation.”
The 38-year-old called for new ICBMs to be developed and the country’s first military satellite to be launched “at the earliest possible date.”
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It comes just hours after the country fired a ballistic missile over the sea east of the Korean peninsula in the early hours of New Year’s Day.
Pyongyang also launched three ballistic missiles on Saturday, capping a year marked by a record number of missile tests.
There is growing speculation that it could be preparing to test a nuclear weapon for the seventh time.
The relationship between North and South Korea has always been tense, but it has worsened since Yoon Suk-yeol took office as the South’s president, vowing to take a tougher line against Pyongyang.
