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| This undated file photo shows North Korean leader Kim Jong-un presiding over an enlarged meeting of the Central Military Commission of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea (WPK). Yonhap |
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has called for expanding his country's war deterrence in a more "practical and offensive" manner, state media said Tuesday, in response to joint military drills by South Korea and the United States.
Kim made the remarks while presiding over an enlarged meeting of the Central Military Commission of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) on Monday, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
Kim raised the need to expand the North's war deterrence with increasing speed in a "more practical and offensive" manner and to "effectively apply it as a measure for more strict control and management of the ever-worsening security" on the Korean Peninsula, the KCNA said in an English-language dispatch.
At the meeting, the North "discussed practical matters and measures for machinery to prepare various military action proposals that no means and ways of counteraction are available to the enemy," it added.
The meeting came amid heightened tension on the peninsula in the wake of the North's weapons tests in protest of joint military exercises by Seoul and Washington. The North has decried such drills as a rehearsal for an invasion against it.
The North has recently intensified its provocative acts, such as the unveiling of the Hwasan-31 tactical nuclear warhead and the Haeil underwater nuclear-capable attack drone, in response to the allies' springtime military drills.
The report also came on the 11th anniversary of Kim taking the post of the first secretary of the WPK.
Photos carried by the KCNA showed Kim pointing his finger at what appears to be a map of South Korea, possibly indicating that the North's weapons could put the South within operational range.
Some observers said Kim seems to be pointing to areas around a key U.S. military base in Pyeongtaek, 65 kilometers south of Seoul, but it cannot be confirmed as the map in the photos is blurry.
The North has been ramping up efforts to develop various short-range missiles capable of carrying tactical nuclear warheads, targeting the South which it has called an "undoubted enemy." (Yonhap)
