Kim Jong-un says US is North Korea’s ‘biggest enemy’

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has said the United States is his nuclear-armed nation’s “biggest enemy”, as he threw down the diplomatic gauntlet to the incoming administration of Joe Biden, state media reported on Saturday.

The declaration comes less than two weeks ahead of the new US president’s inauguration and after a tumultuous relationship between Kim and outgoing leader Donald Trump.

Kim and Trump first engaged in a war of words and mutual threats, before an extraordinary diplomatic bromance that featured headline-grabbing summits and declarations of love by the US president.

But little substantive progress was made, with the process deadlocked after their February 2019 meeting in Hanoi broke down over sanctions relief and what Pyongyang would be willing to give up in return.

According to state news agency KCNA on Saturday, Kim said Washington’s hostile policies would not change regardless of who occupied the White House but dropping those policies would be key to North Korea-US relations.

“Our foreign political activities should be focused and redirected on subduing the US, our biggest enemy and main obstacle to our innovated development,” Kim said during nine hours of remarks over several days at a rare party congress in Pyongyang.

“No matter who is in power in the US, the true nature of the US and its fundamental policies towards North Korea never change.” 

Kim vowed to expand ties with “anti-imperialist, independent forces”.

North Korea would not “misuse” its nuclear weapons, Kim said but the country is expanding its nuclear arsenal, including “preemptive” and “retaliatory” strike capabilities and warheads of varying sizes.

Kim called for developing equipment including hypersonic weapons, solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), spy satellites and drones.

North Korea is preparing for the test and production of various new weapons, including a “multi-warhead rocket” and “supersonic gliding flight warheads for new type ballistic rockets”, while research on a nuclear submarine is nearly complete, he said.

“Kim pretty much showed what’s on his mind – submarine missiles, better ICBMs and other advanced arms,” said Yoo Ho-yeol, professor of North Korean studies at Korea University in Seoul.

“He is saying that’s basically what Washington will see going forward, which could escalate tension or open doors for talks.”

Kim’s remarks were one of the most ambitious outlines of North Korean national defence and nuclear matters in some time, said Ankit Panda, a senior fellow at the US-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“It could presage a return to nuclear testing, which is now on the table given that Kim renounced his April 2018 moratorium,” he said.

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