North Korea held an enlarged plenary meeting of the second session of the Ninth Central Committee of the Workers’ Party from the 20th to the 22nd, the Korean Central News Agency reported on the 23rd. KCNA·Yonhap News
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un condemned South Korea’s push to acquire nuclear-powered submarines and reaffirmed the principle of strengthening his country’s nuclear forces.
North Korea’s Rodong Sinmun reported Sunday that the 2nd plenary meeting of the 9th Central Committee of the Workers’ Party was held from the 20th to the 22nd. At the meeting, Kim said, “Even this year, the United States and South Korea have increasingly laid bare their schemes for military buildup and modernization in the region, going so far as to push for South Korea’s possession of nuclear submarines, while conducting military exercises and reconnaissance activities precisely targeting our nation at all times, gravely worsening the situation on the Korean Peninsula.”
He continued, “What is more dangerous is that the U.S. and South Korea have once again staged a military war game of the Nuclear Consultative Group (NCG), a nuclear-war apparatus aimed at attacking our republic, accompanied by nuclear elements such as the conventional-nuclear integration posture.”
Kim said he would “more aggressively push forward projects to further expand and strengthen the self-defensive deterrent.” Rodong Sinmun reported that “(at the plenary meeting), it was unanimously acknowledged that continuously expanding and strengthening nuclear forces and thoroughly exercising the status of a nuclear weapons state is the most accurate and only path to proactively and confidently respond to the complex and unpredictable international military and political situation.”
Kim instructed that the country “accelerate the project to build a 10,000-ton strategic guided-missile cruiser, which will be carried out in accordance with the April 4 decision of the Party Central Military Commission,” and that it “complete the quality of the southern border fortification work currently underway and build new bases for naval fleets.”
He also declared a foreign policy stance to “firmly uphold our principle of struggle against the enemy, strengthen the united front with anti-imperialist independent forces, and oppose imperialism’s invasion and war schemes.”
Kim said that the war in the Middle East erupted due to “the United States’ indiscriminate high-handed acts” and that Japan is pursuing militarization, adding, “The sovereignty and security of our nation have been firmly guaranteed by strong power and will remain unchanged in the future.” He further said, “In particular, we must thoroughly uphold our party’s principle of struggle against the enemy, which has officially recognized South Korea as the most hostile state.”