The recent development of amending the constitution to include the nuclear programme came after meetings of the Supreme People’s Assembly, North Korea’s rubber-stamp legislature on September 26 and September 27.
North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un addressed the assembly to support the amendment.According to Al Jazeera, Kim called to “accelerate the modernisation of nuclear weapons in order to hold the definite edge of strategic deterrence” against perceived threats, like the United States and South Korea.
“This is a historic event that provided a powerful political lever for remarkably strengthening the national defence capabilities,” Kim added, according to the KCNA. “The (North Korean) nuclear force-building policy has been made permanent as the basic law of the state, which no one is allowed to flout with anything,” Kim added.
Earlier. North Korean Ambassador Kim Song warned the United Nations General Assembly that his country could be pushed to nuclear war by “hostile threats from outside”, reported Al Jazeera.
“The Korean peninsula is in a hair-trigger situation with imminent danger of nuclear war breakout,” Ambassador Kim said on September 26.
He further described it as “extremely dangerous” conditions and said that the North Korea “is urgently required to further accelerate the build-up of its self-defence capabilities to defend itself impregnably.”
The announcement came in defiance of multiple UN Security Council sanctions which meant to deter North Korea from pursuing nuclear arms.
North Korea has been escalating the number of weapon tests it conducts over the past year and has been launching an array of ballistic and cruise missiles, Al Jazeera reported.
Earlier in March, Lieutenant General Scott Berrier, the director of the US Defense Intelligence Agency, said “He will uncork that at a time and place of his choosing, which is something we’ll be watching for very, very carefully.”
Berrier further warned that North Korea has become “much more dangerous” as it inflates its arsenal of missiles and nuclear weapons.
Earlier this month, Kim also visited Russia and met Russian President Vladimir Putin at Vostochny spaceport to strengthen ties and inspect Russian military capailities. Moreover, Putin pledged to visit North Korea in return and further raised concerns about an arms trade deal between Russia and North Korea.
(With Inputs from ANI)
