Concretely, this law will allow North Korea to launch a strike “automatically” and “immediately to annihilate hostile forces” if a foreign power were to threaten it.
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New escalation in the North Korean nuclear arsenal file. Pyongyang has passed a law authorizing it to carry out a pre-emptive atomic strike, state media reported on Friday (September 9th). Concretely, this law will allow him to trigger a strike “automatically” and “immediately to annihilate hostile forces” if a foreign power were to threaten Pyongyang, according to the state agency KCNA. By this new text, “Our country’s status as a nuclear-weapon state has become irreversible,” said North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, again according to KCNA.
This announcement comes in a context of tense inter-Korean relations. Pyongyang has conducted a record number of missile tests this year, and has blamed Seoul for the recent Covid-19 outbreak that hit the country. In July, Kim Jong One had asserted that his country was “ready to deploy” its nuclear deterrent force in the event of a military confrontation with the United States and South Korea. “It is totally out of the question (for us) to renounce nuclear weapons, and there can be no denuclearization or negotiation”he said Thursday in a speech to the North Korean parliament.
This new text testifies to Kim Jong Un’s confidence in his country’s nuclear and military capabilities, in particular in its intercontinental ballistic missiles that can strike the United States, Cheong Seong-chang of the northern studies center told AFP. -Koreans at the Sejong Institute.