North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has pledged to permanently secure his country\u2019s status as a nuclear power while maintaining a hard-line stance toward South Korea, which he described as the \u201cmost hostile\u201d state, according to state media reports Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Kim made the remarks during a speech Monday to North Korea\u2019s Supreme People\u2019s Assembly, the country\u2019s rubber-stamp parliament. He accused the United States of engaging in global \u201cstate terrorism and aggression,\u201d in an apparent reference to conflicts in the Middle East.<\/p>\n
Despite the criticism, Kim did not mention U.S. President Donald Trump by name and suggested that the future of relations with Washington would depend on the choices made by the United States and its allies.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhether they choose confrontation or peaceful coexistence is up to them, and we are prepared to respond to any choice,\u201d Kim said.<\/p>\n
His comments echoed positions he outlined during last month\u2019s ruling Workers\u2019 Party Congress, where he harshly criticized South Korea but left the possibility of dialogue with the United States open. However, Kim again insisted that Washington must drop demands for North Korea\u2019s nuclear disarmament as a precondition for talks.<\/p>\n
North Korea\u2019s state media also reported that the Supreme People\u2019s Assembly approved revisions to the country\u2019s constitution during its two-day session, though details of the changes were not disclosed.<\/p>\n
Observers had expected the revisions to formally define South Korea as a permanent enemy and remove references to shared national identity between the two Koreas. The shift follows Kim\u2019s declaration in 2024 that North Korea would abandon its longstanding goal of peaceful reunification with the South.<\/p>\n
Analysts say Kim\u2019s increasingly hostile rhetoric toward Seoul reflects his belief that South Korea, which once helped facilitate his historic meetings with Trump in 2018 and 2019, is no longer a useful intermediary with Washington.<\/p>\n
Kim has also taken steps to curb the influence of South Korean culture and language inside North Korea, launching campaigns to block the spread of South Korean media as part of broader efforts to tighten authoritarian control.<\/p>\n
In his address, Kim praised North Korea\u2019s rapid expansion of nuclear weapons and missile programs, calling the buildup the \u201cright\u201d strategy to defend the country against what he described as the \u201chegemonic pursuits\u201d of imperialist powers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe dignity of the nation, its national interest and its ultimate victory can only be guaranteed by the strongest of power,\u201d Kim said, vowing that the government would continue to consolidate its \u201cabsolutely irreversible status as a nuclear power.\u201d<\/p>\n
North Korea has suspended meaningful diplomatic engagement with both Washington and Seoul since the collapse of Kim\u2019s second summit with Trump in 2019, which ended without an agreement on easing sanctions in exchange for nuclear concessions.<\/p>\n
In recent years, Kim has strengthened ties with Russia, sending thousands of troops and military equipment to support Moscow\u2019s war in Ukraine. Analysts believe the cooperation may be part of a broader exchange involving economic assistance and military technology.<\/p>\n
With the possibility of the Ukraine war eventually winding down, experts say Kim may be leaving the door open for future dialogue with Washington, potentially seeking sanctions relief and tacit international recognition of North Korea as a nuclear-armed state.<\/p>\n
Some analysts also believe that recent joint U.S.-Israel military actions against Iran and the killing of Tehran\u2019s previous supreme leader may have reinforced Kim\u2019s determination to maintain a strong nuclear deterrent.<\/p>\n
Separately, North Korean state media reported that Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has accepted an invitation from Kim to visit Pyongyang, though no date for the trip has yet been announced.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has pledged to permanently secure his country\u2019s status as a nuclear power while maintaining a hard-line stance toward South Korea, which he described as the \u201cmost hostile\u201d state, according to state media reports Tuesday. Kim made the remarks during a speech Monday to North Korea\u2019s Supreme People\u2019s Assembly, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":123,"featured_media":15427,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[113],"tags":[3672,17058,17059,17051,17054,17057,17052,15840,17053,16778,17055,17056],"class_list":["post-15413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","tag-amat","tag-belarus-lukashenko-visit-pyongyang","tag-global-nuclear-security-concerns","tag-kim-jong-un-nuclear-policy","tag-kim-jong-un-speech-parliament","tag-north-korea-constitution-changes","tag-north-korea-nuclear-weapons-status","tag-north-korea-russia-military-cooperation","tag-north-korea-south-korea-tensions","tag-swifteradio-news","tag-us-north-korea-relations-trump","tag-workers-party-congress-north-korea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/swifteradio.com\/update\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/swifteradio.com\/update\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/swifteradio.com\/update\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swifteradio.com\/update\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/123"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swifteradio.com\/update\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/swifteradio.com\/update\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15413\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swifteradio.com\/update\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/swifteradio.com\/update\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swifteradio.com\/update\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swifteradio.com\/update\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}