North Korea has officially solidified its nuclear power status within its constitution, with leader Kim Jong Un calling for more modern atomic weapons to counter the threat from the United States, according to State media reports.
Despite facing international sanctions due to its nuclear weapons program, North Korea has conducted a significant number of missile tests throughout the year, disregarding warnings from the U.S., South Korea, and their allies, AFP report.
Diplomatic attempts to persuade Pyongyang to relinquish its nuclear arsenal have failed. Kim’s announcement last year that North Korea had become an “irreversible” nuclear weapons State set the stage for this constitutional change.
At a State People’s Assembly meeting, Kim declared that North Korea’s “nuclear force-building policy has been made permanent as the basic law of the state, which no one is allowed to flout.”
He emphasized that North Korea required nuclear weapons to counter the perceived existential threat posed by the United States and its allies.
According to Kim, the U.S. had heightened its nuclear war threats by resuming large-scale nuclear war drills and maintaining a permanent presence of strategic nuclear assets near the Korean peninsula.
Kim also expressed concerns about increased security cooperation among Washington, Seoul, and Tokyo, labeling it the “worst actual threat” and underscoring the importance of accelerating nuclear weapons modernization to maintain a strategic advantage.
In response to the constitutional change, Japan´s Chief Cabinet Secretary, Hirokazu Matsuno, on Thursday, said “North Korea´s nuclear and missile development threatens the peace and security of our country and the international community.”
Also responding to the change, South Korea said its special representative for Korean Peninsula Peace and Security Affairs spoke to his US and Japanese counterparts, and that the three “strongly condemned” the constitutional amendment.
They agreed to work towards creating “an environment where North Korea has no choice but to denuclearise”, the foreign ministry in Seoul said in a statement.
Nonetheless, experts believe that with its nuclear status now embedded in the constitution, the prospects of convincing North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons have diminished significantly.
