North Korea Says It Will Strengthen Nuclear Deterrence as Kim Warns of Rising Threats

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has vowed to strengthen and speed up the country’s defence capabilities, claiming military actions by South Korea and the United States are escalating tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

State media outlet KCNA reported Tuesday that Kim made the remarks during a three-day meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea, which ended Monday.

Kim “reaffirmed the steadfast policy stand of our Party and state to beef up the national defence capabilities faster,” KCNA said.

Pyongyang argued that recent military developments involving the US and South Korea — including expanded armed forces modernization and South Korea’s pursuit of a nuclear-powered submarine — are increasing regional instability.

Kim reportedly said the moves are “pushing the situation in the Korean peninsula to the brink of a nuclear war.”

North Korea, which remains under several rounds of international sanctions over its nuclear weapons programme, has long maintained that its weapons are necessary for self-defence. The two Koreas are still technically at war because the Korean War ended in an armistice rather than a formal peace agreement.

According to KCNA, Kim stressed that North Korea would continue to “further expand and strengthen the powerful and absolutely reliable deterrent for self-defence.”

The agency also stated that officials at the meeting unanimously agreed that strengthening nuclear forces is “the most correct and unique way” to respond to unpredictable international political and military conditions.

KCNA added that Pyongyang’s nuclear deterrent programme would continue “at increasing speed.”

Hong Min, an analyst at Seoul’s Korea Institute for National Unification, said the rhetoric reinforces North Korea’s position that its nuclear weapons programme is non-negotiable.

He said the language “effectively shuts down any room for denuclearisation talks and treats the irreversibility of its nuclear status as a fait accompli.”

North Korea has repeatedly described itself as an “irreversible” nuclear state since the breakdown of nuclear negotiations between Kim and Donald Trump in Hanoi in 2019.

Kim Yo Jong, the North Korean leader’s sister, recently described the country’s nuclear policy as a “line of no retreat,” reaffirming that Pyongyang has no intention of giving up its nuclear arsenal.

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung said last week that Donald Trump agreed it was time to “pay attention to the North Korea issue” during discussions at the G7 summit in France.

Lee also said he told Trump that sanctions against North Korea were now “ineffective,” adding that both leaders agreed the issue requires a different approach from other international nuclear disputes.

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