Al Jazeera :
North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un has promised to “exponentially” boost the nation’s nuclear arsenal in a bid to defend the country against “hostile” forces.
Kim said the isolated state faces “a grave threat” due to “the reckless expansion” of a United States-led regional military bloc that is now developing into a nuclear-based threat, the official Korean Central News Agency reported on Tuesday.
In a speech marking the 76th founding anniversary of his government the previous day, Kim said this development is pushing North Korea to expand its military capabilities.
The Asian country will “redouble its measures and efforts to make all the armed forces of the state, including the nuclear force, fully ready for combat,” he promised.
The speech comes after Pyongyang disclosed a new platform likely designed to fire more powerful intercontinental ballistic missiles.
It has also resumed its practice of launching rubbish-carrying balloons towards South Korea in recent days.
Kim Jong Un sitting at a desk. There is a screen in front of him, showing a picture of a tank. There are two pairs of binoculars on the desk. Kim is wearing a white lab coat and a puffy light beige cap on his head. He is laughing. A group of older men are with him. They are also smiling. One is pointing.
North Korea has protested the July signing of a new US-South Korean defence guideline meant to integrate US nuclear weapons and South Korean conventional weapons to cope with growing North Korean nuclear threats.
North Korea said the guideline revealed its adversaries’ plots to invade. US and South Korean officials have repeatedly said they don’t intend to attack the country.