North Korea’s Kim sends 250 nuke missile launchers to frontlines amid grand celebration

Says new launchers will give frontline units 'overwhelming' firepower over South, calls for his country to brace for prolonged confrontation with US

Seoul: North Korea marked the delivery of 250 nuclear-capable missile launchers to frontline military units at a ceremony where leader Kim Jong Un called for a ceaseless expansion of his military’s nuclear programme to counter perceived US threats, state media said Monday.

Concerns about Kim’s nuclear programme have grown as he has demonstrated an intent to deploy battlefield nuclear weapons along the North’s border with South Korea and authorised his military to respond with preemptive nuclear strikes if it perceives the leadership as under threat.

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North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency said the launchers were freshly produced by the county’s munitions factories and designed to fire “tactical” ballistic missiles, a term that describes systems capable of delivering lower-yield nuclear weapons.

Kim said at Sunday’s event in Pyongyang the new launchers would give his frontline units “overwhelming” firepower over South and make the operation of tactical nuclear weapons more practical and efficient.

State media photos showed lines of army-green launcher trucks packing a large street with seemingly thousands of spectators attending the event, which included fireworks.

In his speech, Kim called for his country to brace for a prolonged confrontation with the United States and urged a relentless expansion of military strength. He justified his military buildup as a counter to the “increasingly savage” military cooperation between the United States and its regional allies, which he claimed are now showing the characteristics of a “nuclear-based military bloc.”

“It would be our choice to either pursue dialogue or confrontation, but our lesson and conclusion from the past 30 years … is that confrontation is what we should be prepared more thoroughly for,” said Kim.

“The United States we are facing is not just an administration that comes and goes after a few years, but a hostile nation that our children and grandchildren will be dealing for generations to come and that also illustrates the necessity to continuously improve our self-defence capabilities,” he said.

Kim also said the decision to hold the weapons ceremony while the country was trying to recover from disastrous flooding showed its determination to “push ahead with the strengthening of our national defence capabilities force without stagnation under any circumstances.”