SEOUL — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un reviewed powerful missiles developed to launch nuclear strikes on the US mainland, as he vowed to build an “invincible” military to cope with what he called persistent US hostility, state media reported Tuesday.
In an apparent continued effort to drive a wedge between Washington and Seoul, Kim also used his speech at a rare exhibition of weapons systems Monday to stress that his military isn’t targeted at South Korea and that there shouldn’t be another war pitting Korean people against each other.
“The US has frequently signalled it’s not hostile to our state, but there is no action-based evidence to make us believe that they are not hostile,” Kim said Monday, according to the official Korean Central News Agency. “The US is continuing to create tensions in the region with its wrong judgments and actions.”
Calling the United States a “source” of instability on the Korean Peninsula, Kim said his country’s most important objective is possessing an “invincible military capability” that no one can dare challenge.
The exhibition, which KCNA says was meant to mark the 76th birthday of the ruling Workers’ Party on Sunday, was the first of its kind since Kim took power in late 2011, according to Seoul officials. North Korean photos showed Kim, clad in a dark suit, walking on a red carpet lined with big missiles mounted on trucks, passing by a multiple rocket launch system and watching jets flying in a formation.
The exhibition featured an array of newly-developed weapons, including intercontinental ballistic missiles North Korea has already test-launched or displayed during military parades in recent years, experts say.
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