North Korean leader Kim Jong Un observes marksmanship training, March 6, 2024, in this image from the state-run Korean Central News Agency. (KCNA)
CAMP HUMPHREYS, South Korea — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un called for the strengthening of his country’s nuclear force due to perceived threats by the United States and South Korea, state media reported Monday.
Kim made the comments Monday during a speech marking the 76th anniversary of the founding of North Korea, the Korean Central News Agency reported. The communist regime was founded under the rule of Kim’s grandfather Kim Il Sung on Sept. 9, 1948.
The KCNA report described Pyongyang as a “responsible nuclear weapons state” and said the country is “constantly exposed to a serious nuclear threat.”
North Korea has no choice but to increase “the number of nuclear weapons” due to hostilities from the U.S. and South Korea, according to KCNA.
Washington and Seoul concluded two large-scale military exercises earlier this month: the 11-day Ulchi Freedom Shield, the second of a biannual joint exercise, on Aug. 29, and the 12-day Ssangyong maritime exercise Saturday.
Thousands of U.S. and South Korean troops simulated air interdiction, amphibious landings, artillery and cyber-defense drills throughout South Korea during the exercises.
North Korea says these drills are a rehearsal of an invasion of its country; the U.S. and South Korean militaries say they are acting defensively in response to potential threats from the North.
“The hostile forces can never evade the heavy responsibility for escalating tension and will have to pay a dear price,” the North Korean Ministry of Defense said through KCNA on Thursday.
Kim has vowed to continue developing conventional and nuclear weapons. On Sept. 27, 2023, he amended the country’s constitution to ensure it boosts nuclear weapons production and to make the mandate “the basic law of the state,” according to a KCNA report the same day.
North Korea has conducted six nuclear tests since 2006. It last detonated what it claimed was a hydrogen device on Sept. 3, 2017.
The regime is estimated to have created 50 nuclear warheads and produced enough fissile material for up to 90 warheads, according to a Stockholder International Peace Research Institute report published June.
North Korea has claimed it could deliver its nuclear weapons with more advanced delivery systems, such as intermediate-range and submarine-launched ballistic missiles.
So far this year North Korea has launched nearly 40 ballistic missiles in eight separate days of testing, according to the South’s Ministry of National Defense.
Pyongyang last fired two ballistic missiles, one of them a short-range variant, off its eastern coast on July 1. The second, unidentified missile flew about 75 miles eastward in an abnormal flight trajectory before the South Korean military lost track of it, the South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said at the time.
