(Seoul) North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has called for increasing his country’s deterrence capabilities to counter what he called “hysterical” aggression by the United States and Korea South, the state news agency said Tuesday.
On Monday, the North Korean number 1 attended a meeting of the Central Military Commission devoted to the fight “against the escalation of the maneuvers of the American imperialists and traitors, South Korean puppets to start a war of aggression”, according to the official KCNA news agency.
At this meeting, Kim Jong-un ordered the strengthening of North Korea’s deterrence capabilities, “more and more quickly” and in a “more concrete and offensive” way.
Since March 23, Pyongyang has notably claimed to have carried out three tests of an underwater nuclear attack drone capable of “producing a large-scale radioactive tsunami”.
The regime also said it launched an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) on March 16.
Last year, North Korea declared itself an “irreversible” nuclear power, thus burying possible negotiations on the denuclearization of its country.
And in March, Kim Jong-un ordered his troops to intensify their exercises for “real war”. Washington and Seoul responded with joint military maneuvers, involving US stealth aircraft.
Pyongyang considers these maneuvers as rehearsals for an invasion of its territory and described them on Tuesday as “hysterical” exercises, “simulating an all-out war against” North Korea.