North Korea’s Kim vows to build ‘most advanced’ warships

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un vowed to possess “the most advanced and powerful warships” while touring a shipyard, state media reported Wednesday, as Pyongyang accelerates an ambitious naval expansion. Kim toured the Nampho Shipyard on Monday, where North Korea is building a new warship, the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said. The nuclear-equipped country has been rapidly upgrading its navy, commissioning 5,000-tonne destroyers and testing ship-launched missiles, while Kim has pledged to arm the fleet with nuclear weapons and build larger 10,000-tonne warships.

Pyongyang says the expansion is needed to counter threats from the United States and South Korea, as North Korea develops weapons designed to extend its military reach beyond its traditionally coastal navy. Kim said the “recently emerging geopolitical environment and the hostile acts of adversaries” demonstrated “the need to possess the most advanced and powerful warships”, according to KCNA.

The warship under construction has a “combat system possessing operational capabilities that no other country in the world has”, Kim said, stressing the “significant military importance of this enormous concentration of combat power”. “He (Kim) said this was because we must defend our homeland, guarantee our sovereignty and deter all threats.” Kim expressed “great satisfaction” after inspecting the vessel and said it was “incomparable to the destroyer built last year”.

The unprecedented operational capabilities could indicate plans to equip the new ships with “strategic cruise missiles (Hwasal series), tactical nuclear weapons, or ship-to-ship and ship-to-surface missiles”, Lim Eul-chul, professor at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies at Kyungnam University, told AFP. North Korea last year unveiled a 5,000-ton destroyer-class vessel, that experts believe can carry both ship-to-surface and ship-to-air missiles.

Kim’s shipyard visit came a day after North Korea test-fired strategic cruise missiles, following a separate test of cluster bomb warheads over the weekend. Separately, Kim’s sister warned the United States on Wedendsay that her country will mount a stronger response to Washington’s “invariable hostile policy” toward Pyongyang.