Kim Jong Un Says South Korea's Nuclear Submarine Push Will Worsen Tensions on the Korean Peninsula, Calls for Full Exercise of Nuclear State Status

[Financial News] Kim Jong Un, President of the State Affairs Commission of North Korea, claimed that South Korea's push to acquire nuclear-powered submarines is worsening tensions on the Korean Peninsula. He also reiterated his unchanging position on North Korea's status as a nuclear-armed state. The remarks drew attention as his first external statement since he held a North Korea-China summit with Xi Jinping, President of the People's Republic of China, in Pyongyang this month, the first in seven years.
According to Rodong Sinmun on the 23rd, Kim said, "Even this year, the United States and South Korea have been increasingly blatant in their efforts to build up and modernize military power in the region, while also pushing ahead with South Korea's acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines." He added, "They are constantly carrying out military drills and reconnaissance activities aimed at our state, driving the situation on the Korean Peninsula to an extreme level of deterioration."
In his concluding remarks at the expanded meeting of the 2nd Plenary Session of the 9th Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea, which ran for three days from the 20th, Kim said that fully exercising nuclear state status is the most correct and only way to proactively and confidently respond to the complex, changing, and unpredictable international military and political situation. He also reaffirmed plans to maintain a stance of "struggle against the enemy" toward the United States and South Korea.
Kim also claimed, "In the six simulations conducted so far, a nuclear war scenario has been developed in detail and made more concrete, covering everything from the methods of war and operational procedures to training and operational elements." He said this was clear proof of the criminal nature of the body that is pushing the Korean Peninsula toward nuclear war day by day.
He also continued his criticism of the Nuclear Consultative Group (NCG) between South Korea and the United States. On the 11th, the two countries held the 6th NCG meeting in Seoul and issued a joint statement saying they had "reaffirmed their shared goal of North Korea's denuclearization."
The NCG is a consultative body launched under the Washington Declaration, the outcome of the 2023 South Korea–United States summit, to strengthen extended deterrence.
Kim said, "In response to the geopolitical crisis that has been created, we will more aggressively push ahead with efforts to further expand and strengthen our powerful and absolutely reliable self-defense deterrent."
The newspaper reported that he also instructed officials to continue, without pause and in a thoroughly Korean way, the task of further expanding powerful defense assets.
In particular, Kim said that, in line with a decision by the Central Military Commission of the Workers' Party of Korea, the country must accelerate the construction of a 10,000-ton strategic guided-missile destroyer. He also called for the establishment of new munitions factories and the modernization of existing ones. This is the first time North Korea has disclosed the construction of a 10,000-ton warship.
Kim also said on the day that North Korea must firmly uphold the party's principle of struggle against the enemy, which defines South Korea as the most hostile state. The newspaper said he again laid out his foreign policy stance against the "principle of struggle against the enemy" and the "imperialist schemes of aggression and war."
He also ordered an acceleration of military construction essential to strengthening national defense, including completing the "Southern Border Fortification Project," a "severance measure" that involves building barriers along the inter-Korean border and cutting off connecting roads, as well as building new bases for naval fleets. 

rainman@fnnews.com Kim Kyung-soo Reporter