SEOUL – North Korea has passed a new law that stipulates it will launch a nuclear attack if the United States or South Korea tries to remove leader Kim Jong-un from power, state media reported today. Friday.
The law was passed by North Korea’s rubber-stamped National Assembly, the Supreme People’s Assembly, on Thursday, according to North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency. The meeting, convened in time for the 74th anniversary of the founding of the North on Friday, was used as a venue for Mr. Kim to outline his evolving nuclear policy.
The new law says North Korea will launch an “automatic and immediate” nuclear strike if its system of command and control of its nuclear forces is endangered, a stark testament to its leadership. Kim’s religion.
The law also says that while North Korea’s nuclear arsenal is primarily a war deterrent, the weapon could also be used if a weapon of mass destruction attack – or a missile strike nuclear war against the North Korean leader – launched or imminent. They can also be used to prevent “the extension and prolongation of a war,” the law said, according to state media reports.
In an explicit warning to South Korea, the law also says that North Korea will not use nuclear weapons against countries that do not have them, unless such a country attacks North Korea “collusively” with a other nuclear powers – perhaps including the United States, a military ally of the South.
In recent months, North Korea has indicated that it plans to adopt a more active nuclear doctrine. In a speech at a military parade in april, Mr Kim vowed to expand North Korea’s nuclear arsenal “at the fastest possible pace”, saying it was not just a deterrent but could be used “if any force tries to violate the fundamental interests of our state.”
With the new law, North Korea put that doctrine into law. Doing so makes it clear that “there won’t be any more negotiations on our nuclear energy,” Kim said in a speech at the Supreme People’s Assembly on Thursday.
Kim said North Korea will not give up its nuclear weapons unless there is a change in the “political and military environment surrounding the Korean Peninsula”, which he says has forced the North to develop its arsenal. gas. He said there would be “absolutely no denuclearization, no negotiations and no bargaining chip for trade,” according to state media reports on Friday.
Notice, with its threatening response to any try to get rid of Mr. KimCheong Seong-chang, director of the Center for North Korean Studies at the Sejong Institute, South Korea.
During this year’s election campaign, South Korea’s conservative president, Yoon Suk-yeol, saw a pre-emptive military strike as an option to counter North Korea’s nuclear threat.
“Now that North Korea has made it clear in its law that it can use nuclear weapons, even in response to an attack involving non-nuclear weapons, we cannot rule out the possibility that a An accidental military clash on the Korean Peninsula could lead to the use of nuclear weapons,” said Mr. Cheong.
Kim’s increasingly aggressive nuclear doctrine suggests that if North Korea comes back Negotiating with WashingtonLeif-Eric Easley, a professor of international studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, said the country would “frame them as discussions about ensuring mutual security and not about denuclearization”.
Since coming to power a decade ago, Kim has focused on building up North Korea’s nuclear arsenal, calling it a “treasure sword” that protects the country from foreign aggression. Under Kim, North Korea has conducted four underground nuclear tests and multiple missile launches, including those involving intercontinental ballistic missiles, in violation of international sanctions.
Based on newly declassified US intelligence, It has also sold millions of artillery shells and missiles to Russia for the war in Ukraine, which Kim has wholeheartedly supported.
North Korea halted all nuclear and ICBM tests in 2018 to set the stage for summit meetings between Mr. Kim and President Donald J. Trump. Kim hopes to end sanctions that have ravaged his economy for years, but unprecedented talks have ended without agreement on dismantling North Korea’s nuclear program. Advance or lift the sanctions.
In the past, North Korea has used its nuclear weapons as a tool to bring Washington to the negotiating table. By that logic, the stronger the arsenal, the more leverage Kim has. But since his diplomatic relations with Mr Trump collapsed, Mr Kim has vowed to find a “new way” to deal with Washington.
This year, he started testing a new types of rocketsurged his men to prepare for confrontation with the United States “for a long time.”
