NUCLEAR POWER?
After a record-breaking year of weapons tests and growing nuclear threats from Pyongyang in 2022, Seoul and Washington have ramped up security cooperation.
On Thursday, the two allies completed their largest joint military drills in five years.
Pyongyang views all such exercises as rehearsals for invasion and has threatened “overwhelming” action in response.
On Friday, KCNA described the US-South Korea joint exercises – dubbed Freedom Shield – as a drill for “occupying” North Korea.
Pyongyang’s “underwater nuclear attack drone” drill had been held “to alert the enemy to an actual nuclear crisis”, the agency said.
Leader Kim had also stressed that the North’s nuclear capabilities were “being bolstered at a greater speed”, KCNA said.
North Korea last year declared itself an “irreversible” nuclear power and Kim recently called for an “exponential” increase in weapons production, including tactical nuclear weapons.
Washington has repeatedly restated its “ironclad” commitment to defending South Korea, including using the “full range of its military capabilities, including nuclear”.
South Korea, for its part, is eager to reassure its increasingly nervous public about the US commitment to so-called extended deterrence, where US military assets, including nuclear weapons, serve to prevent attacks on allies.
Friday’s statement comes about a week after Pyongyang test-fired its largest and most powerful missile, a Hwasong-17 – its second ICBM test this year.