North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said the country’s navy would become “a component of the state nuclear deterrence” as he visited the service’s command, state-run media said Tuesday.
In a speech delivered Sunday commemorating Navy Day, which fell on the following day, Kim denounced the leaders of Japan, the United States and South Korea as “gang bosses” and stressed the need for the navy to “get prepared to break the enemy’s will for war,” the official Korean Central News Agency reported.
Earlier this month, the leaders of the three countries agreed to conduct joint military exercises regularly.
“Owing to the reckless confrontational moves of the U.S. and other hostile forces, the waters off the Korean Peninsula have been reduced into the world’s biggest war hardware concentration spot, the most unstable waters with the danger of a nuclear war,” Kim was quoted as saying.
Pyongyang is believed to be accelerating its efforts to deploy submarine-launched ballistic missiles with strategic nuclear warheads as well as nuclear-equipped underwater drones.
South Korea and the United States last week began the Ulchi Freedom Shield summer exercises, designed to enhance their joint responses to North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats. Pyongyang has long denounced the drills as a rehearsal for war.
Kim said North Korea requires its Navy to maintain war readiness, a “constant combat alertness,” and called for “radically” modernizing its weapons and equipment.
Kim visited the navy command with his wife, Ri Sol Ju, sister, Kim Yo Jong, and daughter, Kim Ju Ae, pictures released by KCNA showed.
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