Kim accuses U.S. of 'unprecedented' acts against North

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called for increased war preparations on the second day of a Workers’ Party meeting as he accused the U.S. of “unprecedented” acts of confrontation against his regime, Pyongyang’s state media reported Thursday.

In this footage aired by Pyongyang's state-controlled Korean Central Television on Thursday, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un speaks during the second-day session of the ruling Workers' Party meeting the previous day. [YONHAP]

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called for increased war preparations on the second day of a key Workers’ Party meeting as he accused the United States of engaging in “unprecedented” acts of confrontation against his regime, Pyongyang’s state media reported Thursday.

According to an English-language report released by the state-controlled Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), Kim also vowed to “expand and develop the relations of strategic cooperation with the anti-imperialist independent countries and dynamically wage the anti-imperialist joint action and struggle on an international scale.”

The KCNA said Kim “set forth the militant tasks for the People's Army and the munitions industry, nuclear weapons and civil defense sectors to further accelerate the war preparations.”

According to the state news agency, Kim described tensions on the Korean Peninsula as having reached an extremely dangerous level, which he blamed on “unprecedented” U.S.-led actions directed against the North.

Kim is expected to use the year-end meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party to lay out the regime’s agenda for the coming year in lieu of his annual New Year’s address.

South Korean intelligence officials on Thursday told reporters that Seoul is preparing for the possibility that Pyongyang might carry out “provocative” acts to influence political developments in South Korea and the United States, both of which are due to hold major elections in 2024.

The National Intelligence Service (NIS) noted that the North conducted its sixth nuclear weapons test as well as a drone incursion into the South three months before the general election in 2016 and also fired four short-range ballistic missiles just a month before the 2020 election.

The NIS also believes the regime has been preparing to undertake hostile actions against the South by appointing Kim Yong-chol as an advisor to the Worker’s Party United Front Department in June, as well as Ri Yong-gil and Pak Jong-chon as the chief of the party’s Central Military Commission and the head of the Military Leadership Department, respectively.

The three are described by South Korean intelligence as the North’s “leading provocateurs,” with Kim believed to be the mastermind behind the sinking of the South Korean corvette ROKS Cheonan in 2010 and the shelling of South Korea’s Yeonpyeong Island in 2011.

Ri and Pak are believed to have had a hand in the North’s planting of land mines that exploded on the South Korean side of the border in 2015, which led to two South Korean soldiers losing their legs.

Kim Yo-jong, the powerful sister of Kim Jong-un, also warned in a Dec. 21 statement that South Korea and the United States “would be wise to consider” how the North will respond to the allies’ military maneuvers.

Kim’s statement came four days after the arrival of the U.S. nuclear-powered submarine USS Missouri in Busan on Dec. 17, which the North’s state media described as an “extremely provocative action” aimed at turning the Korean Peninsula into “an assembly base for all the U.S. nuclear strategic assets.”

The United States has increased the rotation of its strategic assets to the Korean Peninsula to reaffirm its extended deterrence commitment to South Korea.

BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]