Leader Kim Jong Un said North Korea would permanently consolidate its status as a nuclear-armed state, while considering South Korea as its “most hostile” enemy.
“The nation’s dignity, its national interests and its ultimate victory can only be guaranteed by the strongest power,” Kim said. He added that Pyongyang “will continue to consolidate our absolutely irreversible status as a nuclear power.”
He delivered the comments in the Supreme People’s Assembly, the communist-run country’s rubber-stamp legislature. Lawmakers also approved a 2026 state budget that increases defense spending to 15.8% of total expenditure.
Kim again rejected trading disarmament for security guarantees, a longtime US effort.
a lesson from iran
Kim accused Washington of “global terrorism and aggression”, citing the US-Israeli war with Iran as evidence that force exceeds international norms.
He said, “The current world reality… clearly teaches us what is the true guarantee of the survival and peace of a state.”
Without naming US President Donald Trump, Kim said his adversaries “can choose confrontation or peaceful coexistence… and we are ready to respond to any choice.”
South Korean analysts said the comments reflected Pyongyang’s belief that nuclear weapons deter interference.
Yang Moo-jin of the University of North Korea Studies said, “These circumstances strengthen Pyongyang’s long-standing argument that nuclear weapons are necessary for the regime’s survival”.
South Korea as a permanent enemy
The speech came a day after Kim’s reappointment as head of the authoritarian nation’s State Affairs Commission, its highest policy-making body.
Pyongyang on Monday concluded a two-day session of the Supreme People’s Assembly, during which it passed an amended version of the North Korean constitution.
Although the changes are not yet clear, experts expect amendments that would remove reference to shared nationality with South Korea and classify it as a permanent enemy.
South Korea’s Presidential Blue House said on Tuesday that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s designation of the South as the “most hostile state” is undesirable for peaceful coexistence on the Korean Peninsula, Yonhap news agency reported.
Edited by: Louis Olofse