Kim Jong-Un orders to keep nuclear arsenal ready for use

Leader Kim Jong-Un has ordered North Korea’s nuclear arsenal to be readied for pre-emptive use at any time, in an expected escalation of military rhetoric following the UN Security Council’s adoption of tough new sanctions on Pyongyang.

The North’s nuclear warheads must be deployed “on standby so as to be fired at any moment,” Kim was quoted as saying by the North’s official KCNA news agency on Friday.

He also warned that the situation on the divided Korean peninsula had become so dangerous that the North needed to shift its military strategy to one of “pre-emptive attack”.

Such bellicose rhetoric is almost routine for North Korea at times of elevated tensions. While the North is known to have a small stockpile of nuclear warheads, experts are divided about its ability to mount them on a working missile delivery system. Washington downplayed Kim’s threat as posturing.

“We have not seen North Korea test or demonstrate the ability to miniaturise a nuclear weapon and put it on an ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile),” a US defence official told AFP. Still, the official added, “our forces are ready to counter-eliminate strikes if necessary”.

According to KCNA, Kim made his comments while monitoring the test firing of a high-calibre multiple rocket launcher on Thursday, just hours after the UNSC unanimously adopted the US-drafted resolution penalising the North for its fourth nuclear test in Jan and long-range rocket launch last month.

South Korea’s defence ministry said the North had fired half a dozen rockets about 100-150 kilometres into the sea off its eastern coast. In a clear threat to the neighbouring South, Kim said the new rocket launcher should be “promptly deployed” along with other “recently developed” weaponry.

In the wake of the “gangster-like” UN resolution pushed by the United States and its South Korean ally, North Koreans are now “waiting for an order of combat to annihilate the enemy with their surging wrath”, he added.

The UNSC resolution adopted late Wednesday laid out the toughest sanctions on Pyongyang to date over its nuclear weapons programme and will, if implemented effectively, apply significant economic pressure on Kim’s regime. It breaks new ground by sanctioning specific sectors key to the North’s economy and seeking to undermine the North’s use of, and access to, international transport systems.

Pyongyang on Friday rejected the sanctions as “unfair, illicit and immoral” and vowed to keep building its nuclear arsenal. “The strengthening of our nuclear deterrent is a legitimate exercise of our right to self-defence, which will continue as long as the hostile US policy is in place,” a foreign ministry official said.

South Korean President Park Geun-Hye on Friday promised a harsh response to any military provocation by North Korea, after its leader Kim Jong-Un ordered the country’s nuclear arsenal on standby.

“If North Korea launches a provocation, we must respond with stern punishment to clearly show the price North Korea has to pay and our determination to protect our nation,” Park said in a televised speech at a ceremony for newly commissioned military officers.

Following the adoption late Wednesday of unprecedentedly harsh sanctions against Pyongyang by the UN Security Council, Park warned of a “fiercer” North Korean backlash than normal.

Hours after the sanctions resolution was unanimously passed, the North fired six short-range rockets into the sea off its eastern coast - an almost routine response to condemnation by the international community.

The rocket launches were personally monitored by Kim Jong- Un who, according to state media, also ordered North Korea’s nuclear warheads to be deployed “on standby so as to be fired at any moment”. 

Park said the South would stick to its strategy of squeezing Pyongyang into submission over the issue of denuclearisation.

“We must make North Korea realise that its regime will not survive if it does not give up its nuclear programme,” she said, adding that success would be major step towards the eventual unification of the two Koreas.