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Agence France-Presse

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said his country was “equipping the navy with nuclear weapons”, state media reported on Wednesday, as he also unveiled plans to build 10,000-tonne warships.
The remarks came at the commissioning of the Choe Hyon – one of two 5,000-tonne class warships the nuclear-armed state launched last year – in the port city of Nampo 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.

“Following the Choe Hyon, we will soon commission destroyer Kang Kon for operations. After that we will launch 10,000-tonne 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-tonne cruisers, he added.
At a three-day party plenary meeting that wrapped up on Monday, Kim vowed to strengthen defence capabilities, citing military modernisation efforts by South Korea and the United States as pushing the region “to the brink of a nuclear war”.
Pyongyang has repeatedly declared itself an “irreversible” nuclear state since a 2019 summit between Kim and US President Donald Trump in Hanoi collapsed over the scope of denuclearisation and sanctions relief.
The North is under multiple sets of sanctions over its nuclear programme, and the two Koreas remain technically at war because their 1950-53 conflict ended in an armistice rather than a peace treaty.


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The leader is aiming to construct two vessels a year, both of a larger class than the newly commissioned Choe Hon destroyer


The leader is aiming to construct two vessels a year, both of a larger class than the newly commissioned Choe Hon destroyer.


North Korea nuclear crisis

Nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs)

Defence

Kim Jong-un

Kim says North Korea to arm navy with nuclear weapons, build bigger warships

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}The leader is aiming to construct two vessels a year, both of a larger class than the newly commissioned Choe Hon destroyer

The leader is aiming to construct two vessels a year, both of a larger class than the newly commissioned Choe Hon destroyer