{"id":61707,"date":"2026-06-23T07:26:05","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T07:26:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/61707\/"},"modified":"2026-06-23T07:26:05","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T07:26:05","slug":"north-korea-plans-to-expand-nuclear-assets-speed-warship-construction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/61707\/","title":{"rendered":"North Korea plans to expand nuclear assets, speed warship construction"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"mb2-plus4\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/240626NK-NUKESphoto01.jpg\" alt=\"Kaesong Heights in North Korea is viewed from the South Korea side of the border.\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"default-font lh-default ma0 mh3 mt0 pb3\">\n\t\t\t\tKaesong Heights in North Korea, viewed from Peace House on the South Korea side of the Joint Security Area.  (Brendan Trembath\/U.N. Command)<br \/>\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p class=\"storyline-p f4 \">North Korea\u2019s leader said his country will expand its nuclear arsenal and accelerate development of advanced weapons systems, including a 10,000-ton strategic guided missile cruiser, according to state-run media on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"storyline-p f4 \">Kim Jong-un ordered his country\u2019s defense capabilities strengthened \u201cwithout pause\u201d with the goal of \u201covertaking the world,\u201d the Korean Central News Agency reported.<\/p>\n<p class=\"storyline-p f4 \">The North Korean leader spoke during the plenary meeting Saturday through Monday of the ruling Workers\u2019 Party. <\/p>\n<p class=\"storyline-p f4 \">Steadily expanding the country\u2019s nuclear forces is the most effective way to cope with \u201cunpredictable international military\u201d and political situations, according to KCNA.<\/p>\n<p class=\"storyline-p f4 \">Kim specifically said the nation will accelerate its plans to build a 10,000-ton strategic guided missile cruiser, a decision made April 4, according to the report. It provided no additional details about the cruiser.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"storyline-p f4 \">KCNA framed the nuclear expansion plans as a response to what it called increasingly aggressive U.S.-South Korean military cooperation. <\/p>\n<p class=\"storyline-p f4 \">The report highlighted moves by Washington and Seoul to expand joint exercises, modernize their armed forces and use the Nuclear Consultative Group to prepare for a potential conflict with North Korea.<\/p>\n<p class=\"storyline-p f4 \">The group is a bilateral U.S.-South Korea consulting body established in 2023 to strengthen deterrence, coordinate nuclear and strategic planning and address North Korea\u2019s nuclear threats.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"storyline-p f4 \">The group has drawn up \u201cdetailed nuclear war scenarios including war mode, sequence of missions, drills and operation elements,\u201d the KCNA report states. \u201cThis clearly proves the criminal nature of the body pushing the situation in the Korean peninsula to the brink of a nuclear war.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"storyline-p f4 \">KCNA described South Korea\u2019s efforts to acquire nuclear submarines as an \u201cundisguised\u201d move toward modernizing its armed forces against the North and \u201cextremely aggravating the situation in the Korean Peninsula.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"storyline-p f4 \">South Korea\u2019s Ministry of National Defense did not respond to a text message request for comment on Tuesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kaesong Heights in North Korea, viewed from Peace House on the South Korea side of the Joint Security&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61708,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[141,171,5057,24913],"class_list":["post-61707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-korea","tag-kim-jong-un","tag-korean","tag-north-korea-nuclear-program","tag-nuclear-programs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61707\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}