North Korean leader Kim Jong Un accused the United States of escalating tensions and carrying out provocations, state media KCNA said on Friday, saying the Korean Peninsula has never faced such threats of nuclear war before. .
In a speech at a military exhibition in Pyongyang on Thursday, Kim said his past experience of talks with Washington only highlights its “aggressive and hostile” policy against Pyongyang, KCNA said.
“The warring parties on the Korean Peninsula have never before faced such a dangerous and intense confrontation that it could turn into the most devastating thermonuclear war,” Kim said, according to KCNA.
“We have already gone as far as possible in the negotiations with the United States, but what we have become certain about from the outcome is not the superpower’s desire to co-exist, but its overall posture of power and aggressiveness toward us. And there is a hostile policy that can never change.”
During US President-elect Donald Trump’s first term, he and Kim held an unprecedented three meetings in 2018 and 2019 in Singapore, Hanoi and on the Korean border.
But their diplomacy failed to achieve any concrete results due to differences between the US’s call for North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons and Kim’s demand for sanctions relief.
Trump has long touted his relationship with Kim, saying last month that the two countries “would have had a nuclear war that would have killed millions” but that they had prevented it thanks to their relationship.
North Korean state media have not yet publicly mentioned Trump’s re-election.
KCNA said Kim in the speech called for developing and upgrading “ultra-modern” weapons and vowed to advance defense capabilities to strengthen the country’s strategic position.
Strategic and tactical weapons were displayed in this event called Defense Development Exhibition.
Kim’s latest speech comes amid international criticism over increased military cooperation between Pyongyang and Moscow, with North Korea sending more than 10,000 troops to Russia to support its war against Ukraine.
Last week, Kim urged the country’s military to improve war-fighting capabilities, accused the United States and its allies of driving tensions to “the worst period in history” and described the Korean Peninsula as “the world’s Hotspot” said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
