North Korea leader Kim Jong Un has ordered his country’s military, munitions industry and nuclear weapons sector to get ready for war following what he called unprecedented confrontational moves by the U.S., state media said on Thursday.
Speaking on the policy directions for the new year at a key meeting of the country’s ruling party on Wednesday, Kim also said Pyongyang would expand strategic cooperation with ‘anti-imperialist independent’ countries, news agency KCNA reported.
North Korea has been expanding ties with Russia, among others, as Washington accuses Pyongyang of supplying military equipment to Moscow for use in its war with Ukraine, while Russia provides technical support to help the North advance its military capabilities.
‘He (Kim) set forth the militant tasks for the People’s Army and the munitions industry, nuclear weapons and civil defence sectors to further accelerate the war preparations,’ KCNA said.
Kim Jong Un at the December plenary meeting of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea, in Pyongyang, in a picture released on December 28, 2023
Kim praised ‘achievements and victories’ that strengthened national power and boosted the country’s prestige this year, as he opened a meeting to set new policy goals for 2024
On Thursday, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol visited a frontline military unit in the eastern county of Yeoncheon to inspect its defence posture and called for an immediate retaliation if there was any provocation from North Korea.
‘I urge you to immediately and firmly crush the enemy’s will for a provocation on the spot,’ Yoon told troops.
READ MORE: Kim Jong Un did not just tell women to have more children… he told them to BEAT them: Transcript reveals North Korean leader said mothers should be ‘flogging their kids’ during speech that made him cry
During the party plenum, North Korea’s Kim also laid out economic goals for the new year, calling it a ‘decisive year’ to accomplish the country’s five-year development plan, KCNA said.
‘He … clarified the important tasks for the new year to be dynamically pushed forward in the key industrial sectors,’ and called for ‘stabilising the agricultural production on a high level.’
The North has suffered serious food shortages in recent decades, including famine in the 1990s, often as a result of natural disasters. International experts have warned that border closures during the COVID-19 pandemic worsened food security.
North Korea’s crop output was estimated to have increased year-on-year in 2023 due to favourable weather conditions. But a Seoul official has said the amount was still far below what is needed to address the country’s chronic food shortages.
At the same time, the North Korean leader has urged women to have more children amid a plateauing birth rate, seen crying at a mothers’ conference in Pyongyang earlier this month.
A transcript of his speech shows he also urged parents to ‘flog’ their children and instruct them towards jobs in the army or hard labour in the name of toughening up a jaded and stagnant population.
The last census North Korea released was in 2008, which showed its population stood at 24 million. Estimates now suggest 25.7 million people inhabit the country.
However, South Korea’s government assesses that the North’s fertility rate has declined steadily for the past 10 years.
That is a concerning development for the socialist country that depends on mobilised labour to help keep its broken, heavily sanctioned economy afloat.
North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un (3-R) and his daughter Ju-ae (2-R) inspecting the launch of a Hwasong-18 ICBM at an undisclosed location in North Korea, 18 December 2023
Military tanks take part in a military parade to mark the 70th anniversary of the armistice that halted fighting in the 1950-53 Korean War, on Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang, July 27, 2023
The 9th plenary meeting of the 8th central committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea kicked off on Tuesday to wrap up a year during which the isolated North enshrined nuclear policy in its constitution, launched a spy satellite and fired a new intercontinental ballistic missile.
The days-long assembly of the party and government officials has been used in recent years to make key policy announcements. Previously, state media released Kim’s speech on New Year’s Day.