North Korea to strengthen nuclear capability as Kim ramps up defence plans

SEOUL, July 10 — North Korea has decided to beef up its nuclear force “both in quality and quantity” as it moves to modernise its military and strengthen combat readiness, state news agency KCNA reported today. 

The announcement came at an enlarged meeting yesteday of the ruling party’s central military commission, the Korean Central News Agency said.

Among the military measures decided at the meeting was a decision on “bolstering up the nuclear force both in quality and quantity and pushing ahead with the plan for standardising, specialising and modernising military bases”, the report said.

The technical infrastructure of combat systems is also to be upgraded, and Pyongyang will move to “accelerate the construction of modern naval bases”, KCNA said.

Kim told meeting participants that the country’s peace and security could only come with a “strong army” and the containment of all threats, it added.

Kim earlier this month oversaw weapons tests of the 5,000-tonne naval destroyer Kang Kon, which tipped over last year during its launch ceremony but was later repaired.

He has pledged to equip the North’s navy with nuclear weapons.

Pyongyang has repeatedly declared itself an “irreversible” nuclear state since a 2019 summit between Kim and US counterpart Donald Trump in Hanoi collapsed over the scope of denuclearisation and sanctions relief.

The hermetic nation is under multiple sets of sanctions over its nuclear programme, which its leaders have vowed to pursue as an essential deterrent to the United States and South Korea.

North Korea remains technically at war with the South because the neighbours’ 1950-53 conflict ended in an armistice rather than a peace treaty. — AFP