North Korean leader Kim Jong-un emphasized at a Workers' Party meeting that, in response to South Korea and the United States advancing military modernization and building nuclear submarines on the Korean Peninsula, North Korea will accelerate efforts to enhance its own military power.
According to the Korean Central News Agency, Kim Jong-un presided over a three-day Workers’ Party plenary session, where senior officials reviewed various policy plans.
North Korea convened the 2nd Plenary Session of the 9th Central Committee of the Workers’ Party from June 20th to 22nd.
Kim Jong-un stressed the need to speed up the construction project of a 10,000-ton class strategic missile cruiser and commit to researching, developing, and producing conventional weapons that are of great significance to enhancing the combat power of the North Korean military. He also pointed out the need to complete, with guaranteed quality, the ongoing southern border fortification project and to build new naval fleet bases to strengthen national defense capabilities.
In his concluding remarks, Kim Jong-un stated: “With the joint efforts of the United States and South Korea, South Korea is to be equipped with nuclear submarines, and the acts of the US and South Korea to strengthen modern military power are becoming increasingly blatant.”
Kim Jong-un said that, in the face of current developments, North Korea should “maintain a firm stance” to further strengthen its own reliable “deterrent power.”
Speaking about nuclear weapons, the Korean Central News Agency pointed out that the party plenary “unanimously agreed” that amid the unpredictable international military and political situation, establishing North Korea’s nuclear status is “the correct way to actively respond, and also the only choice.”
When Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump held a summit in Hanoi, Vietnam, in 2019, the talks fell apart without a consensus on denuclearization or lifting of sanctions. Since then, North Korea has repeatedly declared that its establishment of a nuclear force is “irreversible.”