North Korea: Kim Jong-un calls to strengthen war deterrence

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called for a strengthening of the country’s war deterrence during a meeting with his senior military officials. The calls come at a time when tensions in the region remain at a high as the United States and South Korea held military drills.

North Korean state media KCNA said Kim held a meeting with the Central Military Commission of the ruling Workers’ Party on Monday. The members of the panel met to hold discussions on the ongoing efforts by Pyongyang to bolster the country’s war deterrence “to cope with the escalating moves of the US imperialists and the South Korean puppet traitors to unleash a war of aggression.”

Kim reviewed the nation’s frontline attack plans and various combat documents, stressing the need to boost the nuclear deterrent with “increasing speed in a more practical and offensive manner.”

KCNA also said the meeting among military officials also addressed “practical matters and measures for machinery to prepare various military action proposals that no means and ways of counteraction are available to the enemy.”

KCNA has claimed that the US and South Korea joint drills are a simulation of an “all-out war against” North Korea with threats to occupy Pyongyang and seize power from its leadership.

Washington and Seoul have repeatedly described their drills as defensive in nature and said that an expansion of drills is necessary to cope with North Korea’s expanding nuclear and missile programs.

Pyongyang has fired a record number of missiles in recent years, including intercontinental ballistic missiles. Such missiles also demonstrated the potential range of the rockets that could reach both the US mainland along with firing nuclear-capable rockets that could hit South Korean targets.

Meanwhile, intelligence analysts in the US said the recent military parade in the isolated nation likely “oversold” the threat that its intercontinental ballistic missiles pose, according to the alleged leaked documents from the US government. One paragraph of the document seen by Reuters said that North Korea showed off an unprecedented number of its ICBM-class launchers back in its military parade on Feb 8 and that those being paraded are “ non-operational systems.”

The alleged document said that North Korea’s aim was likely to “portray a maturing nuclear threat to the US.”