By Joyce Lee and Jack Kim
SEOUL, Feb 26 (Reuters) – North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said he would focus on expanding his country’s nuclear arsenal and that prospects for improving relations with the U.S. rested entirely on Washington’s attitude, state media KCNA reported on Thursday.
North Korea’s week-long Ninth Congress of the ruling Workers’ Party wrapped up with a military parade in the capital Pyongyang on Wednesday, KCNA reported.
The Asian nation’s “international status has risen extraordinarily” as it laid out major policy goals for the next five years, Kim said.
“It is our party’s firm will to further expand and strengthen our national nuclear power, and thoroughly exercise our status as a nuclear state,” Kim said, according to KCNA. “We will focus on projects to increase the number of nuclear weapons and expand nuclear operational means.”
North Korea has assembled around 50 warheads, possesses enough fissile material to produce up to 40 more and is accelerating the production of further fissile material, think tank Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) estimated last year.
Kim also laid out North Korea’s plans to develop stronger intercontinental ballistic missiles including ones that can be launched from underwater, attack systems using artificial intelligence, unmanned drones, and weapons that can hit enemy satellites, KCNA said.
State media photos of the military parade showed formations of soldiers marching through a brightly-lit Kim Il Sung square under a podium where Kim and his daughter stood with senior officials.
Some troops in the parade wore camouflage and special warfare gear, and jets conducted a fly-by.
There was no military hardware visible in photos nor reference by KCNA to strategic weapons such as those that were shown off in a military parade in October.
The presence of Kim’s daughter, known as Ju Ae, will fuel further speculation over whether she is being groomed as his successor.
U.S. RELATIONS
Kim left the door open for discussions with the United States, while also noting that North Korea maintains “the toughest stand” as its U.S. policy.
“If the U.S. withdraws its policy of confrontation with North Korea by respecting our country’s current status… there is no reason why we cannot get along well with the U.S.,” Kim said, according to KCNA.
Kim has so far not accepted overtures by U.S. President Donald Trump, whom he met with three times during Trump’s first term.
Kim’s remarks “point to an expected refusal of any U.S.–North Korea talks premised on denuclearisation, though (Kim) still left the door open for dialogue if Washington first abandons what it calls its hostile policy,” said Yang Moo-jin, former president of the University of North Korean Studies.
Trump plans to travel to China from March 31 to April 2. Some North Korea experts including South Korea’s spy agency have speculated that Kim could meet Trump around that time.
However, Kim called South Korea the “most hostile enemy” and ruled out discussions, saying “the conciliatory attitude that South Korea’s current government advocates on the surface is clumsily deceptive and crude,” according to KCNA.
Since entering office in June last year, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung’s government has made gestures to improve relations between neighbours still technically at war, though North Korea has consistently dismissed efforts by the liberal president.
Kim said Pyongyang “can initiate arbitrary action” if South Korea conducts “obnoxious behaviour” directed at North Korea.
“South Korea’s complete collapse cannot be ruled out,” Kim said according to KCNA.
The remarks appear to be among Kim’s most direct warnings against Seoul and “cannot be taken lightly due to the emphasis on tactical nuclear weapons and conventional weapons, both of which target South Korea,” said Rachel Minyoung Lee, Senior Fellow for the Stimson Center’s Korea Program and 38 North.
President Lee said on Thursday that efforts to build trust and find common ground with North Korea need to continue for systemic peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula.
“A long-established sense of hostility and confrontation cannot be eliminated in an instant. We must build trust through continuous efforts,” Lee said.
(Reporting by Joyce Lee, Jack Kim and Kyu-seok Shim; Editing by Lincoln Feast, Ed Davies and Michael Perry)
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