North Korea Amends Constitution On Nuclear Policy
North Korea has adopted a constitutional amendment to enshrine its policy on nuclear force.
Report says the country’s leader pledged to accelerate the production of nuclear weapons to deter what he called US provocations.
The Supreme People’s Assembly unanimously adopted the revision that states North Korea “develops highly nuclear weapons to ensure” its “rights to existence” and to “deter war.”
Report says this comes after the conclusion on Wednesday of a two-day meeting of the North’s parliament.
“The DPRK’s nuclear force-building policy has been made permanent as the basic law of the state, which no one is allowed to flout with anything,” North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said, addressing the parliament.
Kim went on to stress “the need to push ahead with the work for exponentially boosting the production of nuclear weapons and diversifying the nuclear strike means and deploying them in different services.”
And he said US military drills and deployment of strategic assets in the region were extreme provocations.
Meanwhile, South Korea’s unification ministry said the revised constitution showed Pyongyang’s “strong will” not to abandon its nuclear programme.
“We once again stress that North Korea will face an end of its regime if it uses nuclear weapons,” it warned in a statement.
Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said: “North Korea’s nuclear and missile development poses threats to peace and safety of our country and the international community, and can never be tolerated.”
The amendment comes a year after North Korea officially enshrined in law
the right to use preemptive nuclear strikes to protect itself, a move Kim had said would make its nuclear status “irreversible.”
Kim urged officials to further promote solidarity with the nations standing against the United States, denouncing trilateral cooperation between the US, South Korea, and Japan as the “Asian-version NATO.”
“This is just the worst actual threat, not threatening rhetoric or an imaginary entity,” he said.
REUTERS/Christopher Ojilere
