North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said that his country would equip its navy with nuclear weapons and build larger warships, state media reported on Wednesday, as Pyongyang pushes ahead with its military expansion.
North Korea is under multiple sets of sanctions over its nuclear programme, and leaders have repeatedly insisted they will not abandon it, portraying nuclear weapons as essential to deterrence against the United States and South Korea.
Kim's remarks came at the commissioning of the Choe Hyon -- one of two 5,000-ton class warships the isolated country launched last year -- in the port city of Nampho on Tuesday, the official Korean Central News Agency reported.
'The programme of equipping the Navy with nuclear weapons is following its planned course unerringly,' Kim reportedly told the ceremony.
'This is a strategic course of crucial importance as it will make it possible to keep the nuclear force of our state ready for multifaceted and efficient operation,' he said.
North Korea has previously said the Choe Hyon is equipped with the 'most powerful weapons', and Kim has made multiple inspections of vessels in its class this year, including overseeing a cruise missile test from the Choe Hyon in April.
"L'Following the Choe Hyon, we will soon commission destroyer Kang Kon for operations. After that we will launch 10,000-ton strategic warships one after another,' Kim said in his speech.
Under his scheme, the North should 'build every year two surface ships, whose class is higher than the Choe Hyon, including 10,000-ton cruiser', he added.
Pyongyang has repeatedly declared itself an 'irreversible' nuclear state since a 2019 summit between Kim and Trump in Hanoi collapsed over the scope of denuclearisation and sanctions relief.
North Korea remains technically at war with the South because their 1950-53 conflict ended in an armistice rather than a peace treaty.
Photos released by KCNA showed Kim saluting the departing Choe Hyon alongside senior officials and delivering a speech aboard the newly commissioned vessel.
Lim Eul-chul, a North Korea expert at Kyungnam University, said the move was primarily aimed at deterring the United States, South Korea's main security ally.
'The key point is that North Korea sees these weapons as part of an effort to more effectively deter or impede US military intervention on the Korean Peninsula in the event of a conflict,' he told AFP.
'If the North deploys ship-launched cruise missiles armed with tactical nuclear warheads, it would significantly increase the burden on South Korean and US militaries and drive up the costs of defence and deterrence,' he added.
The announcement came after Kim used a key ruling party meeting to pledge faster military modernisation, accusing South Korea and the United States of pushing the Korean Peninsula 'to the brink of a nuclear war'.
Washington stations about 28,500 troops in South Korea to help Seoul defend against military threats from Pyongyang.
