North Korea’s Kim Jong-un calls for new ICBM, greater nuclear arsenal
- The leader’s comments came after Pyongyang conducted a rare late-night weapons test just hours into the new year
- Kim highlighted the need to boost the country’s nuclear arsenal and secure ‘overwhelming military power’ to defend its sovereignty and security
Kim Jong-un has called for an “exponential” increase in North Korea’s nuclear arsenal, including mass producing tactical nuclear weapons and developing new missiles for nuclear counterstrikes, state media said on Sunday.
In a report at the end of a key party meeting in Pyongyang, Kim said the country must “overwhelmingly beef up the military muscle” in 2023 in response to what it called US and South Korean hostility, the official KCNA reported.
Claiming that Washington and Seoul were set on “isolating and stifling” the North, Kim said his country would focus on the “mass-producing of tactical nuclear weapons” and develop “another ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile) system whose main mission is quick nuclear counterstroke”.
Such goals form the “main orientation” of the 2023 nuclear and defence strategy, the report said.
South Korea’s President Yoon Suk-yeol said on Sunday that North Korea will continue to conduct constant nuclear and missile provocations, and the South’s military should respond with clear retaliation, his office said.
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North Korea's Kim unveils new military goals at key party meeting
Military tensions on the Korean peninsula rose sharply in 2022 as the North conducted sanctions-busting weapons tests nearly every month, including firing its most advanced ICBM ever.