North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has vowed to mobilize all means to deal a “death-blow” to the country’s enemy without hesitation should it opt for military confrontation with the North, state media said Thursday.
Kim made the remark during his visit to the Kim Jong-il University of Military and Politics on Wednesday, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said, calling the university named after Kim’s late father a military training school for core commanding officers.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (C) visits the Kim Jong-il University of Military and Politics on April 10, 2024, in this photo released by the Korean Central News Agency the following day. (For Use Only in the Republic of Korea. No Redistribution) (Yonhap)
“He said that now is the time to be more thoroughly prepared for a war than ever before and that the DPRK should be more firmly and perfectly prepared for a war, which should be won without fail, not just for a possible war,” the KCNA said, referring to the North by its formal name.
Kim w
as also quoted as instructing the university to nurture new military talents who are absolutely loyal to the party central committee and are capable of overwhelming the enemy with “ideological, mental, militant, moral and tactical superiority,” it added.
The KCNA said Kim inspected lecture rooms as well as dorms and a mess hall for faculty and students.
Photos released by the state media outlet showed Kim speaking to officials in a room filled with maps on the wall, including one of the major roads in South Korea, and a topographic model apparently mapping central Seoul.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (R) visits the Kim Jong-il University of Military and Politics on April 10, 2024, in this photo released by the Korean Central News Agency the following day. (For Use Only in the Republic of Korea. No Redistribution) (Yonhap)
North Korea has been dialing up tensions on the Korean Peninsula with weapons tests and harshly worded rhetoric this year after Kim defined inter-Korean ties as relations between “two
states hostile to each other” in a year-end meeting.
In January, the North’s leader called for revising the country’s constitution to define South Korea as its “primary foe” and codify a commitment to subjugate the South Korean territory in the event of war.
Last week, it claimed to have successfully test-fired a new intermediate-range ballistic missile tipped with a hypersonic warhead, saying that all missiles the country has developed are solid-fuel, nuclear capable with warhead control capability.
Source: Yonhap News Agency