North Korean President Kim Jong Un kicked off the major annual year-end meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party, the official KCNA news agency reported on Wednesday. This meeting has become a privileged forum for the leader who, at its closing on January 1 a year ago, announced an “exponential increase in the North Korean nuclear arsenal”.
At the opening of this new edition on Tuesday, he estimated that 2023 had been “a year of great turning points and great changes”, particularly in terms of military capabilities. The year was marked for Pyongyang by the launch of the country’s first spy satellite, test firings of its most powerful intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) to date, the Hwasong-18, and the listing of its status of nuclear power in the Constitution.
Last week, Kim Jong Un said North Korea would not hesitate to use atomic weapons if “provoked” by nuclear weapons. Very tense, relations between Pyongyang and Seoul further deteriorated in November following the launch of the North Korean spy satellite, with the suspension of an agreement which had been concluded in 2018 by the two countries to reduce military tensions.