NORTH KOREAN leader Kim Jong Un condemned South Korean-U.S. military drills and vowed a rapid expansion of his nuclear forces to counter rivals, state media said Tuesday, as he inspected his most advanced warship being fitted with nuclear-capable systems.
Kim’s visit to the western port of Nampo on Monday came as the
South Korean and U.S. militaries kicked off their annual large-scale summertime
exercise to bolster readiness against growing North Korean threats. The 11-day
Ulchi Freedom Shield, which the allies describe as defensive, will mobilize
21,000 troops, including 18,000 South Koreans, for computer-simulated command
post operations and field training.
North Korea has long denounced the allies’ joint drills as
invasion rehearsals and Kim has often used them to justify his own military
displays and testing activities aimed at expanding his nuclear weapons program.
The Korean Peninsula remains in a technical state of war, divided
by the Demilitarized Zone into North Korea and South Korea.
While inspecting the warship Choe Hyon, a 5,000-ton-class
destroyer first unveiled in April, Kim said the allies’ joint military drills
show hostility and their supposed “will to ignite a war,” the North’s Korean Central
News Agency said. He claimed that the exercises have grown more provocative
than before by incorporating a “nuclear element,” requiring the North to
respond with “proactive and overwhelming” countermeasures.
“The security environment around the DPRK is getting more serious
day by day and the prevailing situation requires us to make a radical and swift
change in the existing military theory and practice and rapid expansion of
nuclearization,” KCNA paraphrased Kim as saying, using the initials of North
Korea’s formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
Tensions on the Korean Peninsula have worsened in recent years as
Kim accelerated his military nuclear program and deepened alignment with Moscow
following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. His government has repeatedly dismissed
calls by Washington and Seoul to revive negotiations aimed at winding down his
nuclear and missile programs, which derailed in 2019 following a collapsed
summit with U.S. President Donald Trump during his first term.
In his latest message to Pyongyang on Friday, Lee, who took office
in June, said he would seek to restore a 2018-inter-Korean military agreement
designed to reduce border tensions and called for North Korea to respond to the
South’s efforts to rebuild trust and revive talks.
The 2018 military agreement, reached during a brief period of
diplomacy between the Koreas, created buffer zones on land and sea and no-fly
zones above the border to prevent clashes. But South Korea suspended the deal
in 2024, citing tensions over North Korea’s launches of trash-laden balloons
toward the South, and moved to resume front line military activities and
propaganda campaigns. The step came after North Korea had already declared it
would no longer abide by the agreement.