North Korea’s Kim says country to present nuclear policy in upcoming party meeting

SEOUL – North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said his country will present a policy of jointly advancing nuclear arms and conventional military might during an upcoming key meeting of its ruling party, state media KCNA reported on Sept 13.

While inspecting weapons research centres on Sept 11 and Sept 12, Mr Kim said “the 9th Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea would put forward the policy of simultaneously pushing forward the building of nuclear forces and conventional armed forces in the field of building up national defence”, KCNA said.

Mr Kim also on Sept 12 oversaw a shooting drill by the North Korean military and inspected a hospital construction site, KCNA said.

The flurry of domestic activity by Mr Kim follows his Beijing visit earlier in September for

his biggest international multilateral event

, and meetings with leaders such as Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin that raised his international profile.

Meanwhile, a KCNA commentary on Sept 13 slammed a tabletop military exercise jointly planned next week by the US and South Korea, calling the exercise a “nuclear war drill” and saying it justifies the furthering of North Korea’s nuclear posture. REUTERS