North Korea’s Kim orders military to ‘accelerate’ war preparations

Kim Jong-un has ordered North Korea’s military to “accelerate” war preparations amid rising tensions on the peninsula.

Addressing an end-of-year meeting of the Korean Workers Party, the reclusive leader tasked the state’s munitions industry, nuclear weapons and civil defence sectors with countering what he called unprecedented confrontational moves by the US, state media reported.

He did not offer further specifics.

Kim also said Pyongyang would expand strategic cooperation with “anti-imperialist independent” countries, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported.

He warned the “military situation” on the Korean peninsula had become “extreme” due to “confrontation moves by the US and its vassal forces unprecedented in history”.

North Korea has been expanding ties with Russia in recent months, with Washington accusing Pyongyang of supplying military equipment to Moscow for use in its war with Ukraine in return for technical support to advance its own military capabilities.

At Kim’s direction, North Korea has continued to bolster its military power this year, launching a new spy satellite and undertaking a record number of missile tests. Last week, it conducted its first intercontinental ballistic missile test in five months.

The implications of the launch reverberated in Seoul, where 1,000 military, police officers and firefighters mobilised on Wednesday to take part in rare defence drills that simulated an attack on the South Korean capital by the North.

The exercises simulated assaults on a major water supply facility, telephone network stations, and an underground communications and power cable corridor.

‘A big lesson’ for the South

Oh Se-hoon, Seoul’s mayor, said Hamas’s surprise Oct 7 attack on Israel had served as “a big lesson” for the South.

“Israel’s world-class advanced defence system helplessly buckled under a surprise attack by Hamas armed with conventional artillery and primitive means,” he said.

He said the terror group’s cross-border rampage showed that superior military capabilities did not mean much if the enemy mounted a successful shock assault.

Seoul’s distance of just 38 km (24 miles) from the military border with the North makes it particularly susceptible to an attack at any time, Oh added.

Oh has adopted a hardline position against North Korea, arguing that the South must possess its own nuclear weapons as the only way to neutralise the threat from Pyongyang.

However, Yoon Suk Yeol, South Korea’s president, has ruled out owning nuclear weapons, making it a priority instead to bolster its alliance with the United States and restore security ties with Japan.

On Thursday, he visited a frontline military unit in the eastern county of Yeoncheon to inspect its defence posture and called for an immediate retaliation if there was any provocation from North Korea.

“I urge you to immediately and firmly crush the enemy’s will for a provocation on the spot,” Yoon told troops.

Matthew Miller, a spokesman for the State Department, said last week that the US harbours no hostile intent toward North Korea and remains committed to a diplomatic approach.

But he added that Washington’s commitment to the defence of South Korea and Japan remains “ironclad”.

The neighbours have clashed at sea and one of the South’s islands was bombed by the North, killing scores on both sides, but there has been no direct attack on Seoul since the end of the Korean War in 1953.

Scrapping of key military pact

North Korean state media warned last month that a new “physical clash and war” have become a matter of time after the scrapping of a key military pact designed to reduce tensions with the South.

The 2018 agreement, which aimed to reduce the chance of accidental military escalation along the highly-militarised border, fell apart after Pyongyang breached international sanctions by launching the spy satellite.

During his address on Wednesday, Kim also laid out economic goals for the new year, calling it a “decisive year” to accomplish the country’s five-year development plan, KCNA said.

The North has suffered serious food shortages in recent decades, including a major famine in the 1990s that is thought to have killed hundreds of thousands of people.

North Korea’s crop output was estimated to have increased year-on-year in 2023 due to favourable weather conditions. But Seoul believes the amount is still far below what is needed to address the country’s chronic food shortages.

The multi-day meeting of the Korean Workers Party is set to continue through the end of the year, with a final report set to be delivered publicly on Jan 1.