World

Kim Jong Un pushes for boost in nuclear weapons production over ‘new cold war’

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service/AP)
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service/AP)

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has amended his nation’s constitution to include his policy to expand the country’s military nuclear program.

State media said on Thursday that Mr Kim has called for an exponential increase in the production of nuclear weapons.

The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) added that he called on his nation to play a larger role in a collective of nations confronting the United States in a “new Cold War”.

As per KCNA, Mr Kim commented during a two-day session of North Korea’s rubber-stamp parliament in which he amended the constitution.

The assembly gave unanimous approval to a new clause in the constitution to “ensure the country’s right to existence and development, deter war and protect regional and global peace by rapidly developing nuclear weapons to a higher level”.

Mr Kim said at the assembly that North Korea’s “nuclear force-building policy has been made permanent as the basic law of the state, which no one is allowed to flout with anything”.

The North Korean leader added his nation needs to “push ahead with the work for exponentially boosting the production of nuclear weapons and diversifying the nuclear strike means”.

North Korea
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, bottom centre, attends a meeting of the country’s parliament in Pyongyang, North Korea (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service/AP)

Mr Kim went on to accuse the United States, South Korea, and Japan of combining to create a threat equivalent to the “Asian version of NATO” which he described as “the root cause of war and aggression”.

He said: “This is just the worst actual threat, not threatening rhetoric or an imaginary entity.”

The North Korean leader urged his diplomats to “further promote solidarity with the nations standing against the U.S. and the West’s strategy for hegemony”.

The Supreme People’s Assembly meetings came after in the wake of Mr Kim’s visit to Russia earlier this month.

The trip sparked concerns in the West on a possible arms alliance between the two rogue nations, prompting fears North Korea would provide Russia with munitions for its war on Ukraine in exchange for advanced weapons technologies.