North Korean leader Kim Jong Un delivered a fiery speech where he stressed the importance of accelerating the country’s nuclear weapons program in response to Western threats.  

In the address to the North Korean Army on Friday, Kim said, “The United States has already converted its alliance with the [South Korea] into a nuclear-based one and created an “Asian NATO” in haste by cementing its military ties with Japan and [South Korea.]”

The North Korean leader stressed that US nuclear deployments to the region, joint war games with South Korea and Japan, and building military blocs aimed at Pyongyang are all intolerable to North Korea. 

Kim stressed the increasing threat from Washington justified accelerating Pyongyang’s nuclear program. “Long ago, the line of building up our nuclear forces became an irreversible policy, so what remains to be done now is for these forces to get more fully ready for action so that they can carry out the mission of deterring war and the second mission at any moment.” He continued, “We will build up our nation’s self-defense forces, the pivot of which is its nuclear capability, limitlessly and endlessly without satisfaction.”

In addition to discussing North Korea’s military tensions with the US, Kim also discussed Pyongyang’s position in what he has previously described as a “new Cold War.”

“As the US and other Western countries are using Ukraine as a shock force in the war against Russia, we should view it as a manoeuvre to enrich their real-war experience and expand the scope of military intervention all over the world.” He added, “By sustaining their military assistance to Ukraine and Israel…This aggravates the international security situation, stoking fears of a third world war.”

The relationship between Washington and Pyongyang has soured during the Joe Biden administration. At the end of Donald Trump’s first term, North Korea and the US were engaged in some diplomacy, and Pyongyang was largely respecting its self-imposed missile test moratorium. 

However, Biden refused to engage with Kim while increasing the presence of the American military in South Korea. Combined with the administration’s efforts to bring South Korea and Japan into a military pact, Pyongyang views the Biden policy as highly aggressive. 

Kim responded by ramping up the missile tests, conducting war games near the DMZ, and strengthening Pyongyang’s ties with Moscow.