North Korea has officially enshrined the right to use pre-emptive nuclear strikes to protect the country after Kim Jong Un announced a new law that makes the nation's nuclear status "irreversible" and bars denuclearization talks.
The United Nations secretary-general said that he was "deeply concerned" by the new law and reiterated calls for Pyongyang to return to denuclearization talks. The UN has long-standing sanctions on North Korea's nuclear and missile programs.
North Korea's Nuclear Weapons
Furthermore, the United States once again said that it had no hostile intent toward North Korea and is willing to resume talks without preconditions. The announcement by Kim comes as observers say that North Korea appears to be preparing to resume nuclear testing for the first time since 2017.
Historic summits with then-U.S. President Donald Trump and other world leaders in 2018 failed to persuade the North Korean leader to abandon his weapons development. The Supreme People's Assembly, the country's rubber-stamp parliament, passed the legislation on Thursday to replace a 2013 law that first outlined the nation's nuclear status, as per Reuters.
Kim was quoted as telling the assembly that the utmost significance of legislating nuclear weapons policy is to draw an irretrievable line so that there can be no bargaining over nuclear weapons. One of the scenarios that could trigger a nuclear attack would be the threat of an imminent nuclear strike if the country's leaders, people, or existence were under threat, or to gain the upper hand during a war.
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In a statement, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre repeated past U.S. remarks that Washington has no hostile intent toward North Korea. The official said that the American government continues to seek diplomacy and is prepared to meet without preconditions.
According to KCNAWatch, the nuclear forces of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) are a powerful means for defending the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and fundamental interests of the state, preventing a war on the Korean peninsula and in Northeast Asia and ensuring the strategic stability of the world.
Deterrence for War
The mission of North Korea's nuclear forces is said to be to deter war by making hostile forces have a clear understanding of the fact that the military confrontation with the DPRK brings about ruin and gives up their attempts at aggression and attack.
Furthermore, the DPRK's nuclear forces shall carry out an operational mission for repulsing hostile forces' aggression and attack and achieving the decisive victory of the war in case war deterrence fails.
The measure comes as Kim vowed to never part with the nuclear and missiles program it took his country several decades to build, making them more and more dangerous by the year. The North Korean leader said that the country will "never give up nuclear weapons and there is absolutely no denuclearization, and no negotiation, and no bargaining chip to trade in the process."
Kim, similar to his father before him, is reluctant to part with his nuclear weapons because they help keep the regime in place. However, the thinking was Pyongyang would only use the weapons in the event of foreign nations first attacking North Korea, Politico reported.
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