North Korea has enshrined its status as a nuclear power in its constitution, with leader Kim Jong Un calling for more modern atomic weapons to counter the threat from the United States, state media reported on Thursday, September 28. Despite international sanctions over its nuclear weapons program, North Korea has conducted a record number of missile tests this year, ignoring warnings from the US, South Korea and their allies.
Diplomatic efforts to convince Pyongyang to give up its atomic arsenal failed, and the constitutional change came after Kim's declaration last year that North Korea was an "irreversible" nuclear weapons state. 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," Kim said at a meeting of the State People's Assembly, according to the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). The rubber-stamp parliament met on September 26 and 27.
Kim said North Korea needed nuclear weapons to counter an existential threat from the US and its allies. The US has "maximized its nuclear war threats to our Republic by resuming the large-scale nuclear war joint drills with clear aggressive nature and putting the deployment of its strategic nuclear assets near the Korean peninsula on a permanent basis," he said.
Kim described the recently enhanced security cooperation between Washington, Seoul and Tokyo as the "worst actual threat." As a result, he added, "it is very important for the DPRK to accelerate the modernization of nuclear weapons in order to hold the definite edge of strategic deterrence."
Kim also "stressed the need to push ahead with the work for exponentially boosting the production of nuclear weapons and diversifying the nuclear strike means," according to KCNA.
Neighboring Japan, however, said North Korea's atomic weapons program was "absolutely unacceptable." "North Korea's nuclear and missile development threatens the peace and security of our country and the international community," Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said on Thursday, September 28 in response to the constitutional change.
"We will cooperate with the United States, South Korea and the rest of the international community towards the full implementation of relevant UN Security Council resolutions and the full denuclearisation of North Korea," he said.
North Korea's weapons tests this year included intercontinental ballistic missiles, and its military this month conducted what it described as simulations of a "tactical nuclear attack." Pyongyang has also tried and failed twice this year to put a military spy satellite in orbit. South Korea and the US have ramped up their security cooperation in response, with large-scale joint drills and trilateral naval exercises with Japan.
The last known North Korean weapons test, involving two short-range ballistic missiles, took place while Kim was on his way to meet President Vladimir Putin in Russia. Kim's visit to Russia – his first abroad since the coronavirus pandemic – fanned Western fears that Moscow and Pyongyang will defy sanctions and strike an arms deal. Russia is believed to be interested in buying North Korean ammunition for its war in Ukraine, while Pyongyang wants Russian help with its missile and space programs.