North Korea’s Kim Jong Un doubles down on nuclear program

North Korea will permanently cement its status as a nuclear-armed state while treating South Korea as its “most hostile” enemy, leader Kim Jong Un said

“The dignity of the nation, its national interest and its ultimate victory can only be guaranteed by the strongest of power,” Kim said, adding that Pyongyang would “continue to consolidate our absolutely irreversible status as a nuclear power,” according to state-run  news outlets

He delivered the remarks to the  to the Supreme People’s ​Assembly, the communist-run country’s ‌rubber-stamp legislature. Lawmakers also approved a 2026 state budget that raises defense spending to 15.8% of total expenditure.

Kim again rejected trading disarmament for security guarantees, a long-standing US push.  

A lesson from Iran

Kim accused Washington of “global terrorism and aggression,” framing the US-Israel war with Iran as proof that force overrides international norms.

“The current world reality… clearly teaches what the true guarantee of a state’s existence and peace is,” he said.

Without naming US President Donald Trump, Kim said his opponents can “choose confrontation or peaceful coexistence… and we are prepared to respond to any choice.”

South Korean analysts said the comments reflect Pyongyang’s belief that nuclear weapons deter intervention.

“These circumstances have reinforced Pyongyang’s long-standing argument that nuclear weapons are essential” for regime survival, said Yang Moo-jin of the University of North Korea Studies. 

South Korea as a permanent enemy

The speech came a day after Kim’s reappointment as the head of the authoritarian nation’s State Affairs Commission, its highest policy-making body.

Pyongyang concluded a two-day session of the Supreme People’s Assembly on Monday, during which it passed a revised version of the North Korean constitution.

While the changes are not yet clear, experts expect revisions that remove references to shared nationhood with South Korea and categorize it as a permanent enemy.

South Korea’s presidential Blue ‌House ⁠said ⁠on ​Tuesday that ​North Korean ​leader ‌Kim Jong Un’s declaration ‌of the ‌South ​as “the most hostile state” ​is undesirable for ⁠peaceful ​co-existence ​on the ​Korean ‌peninsula, Yonhap news ​agency ⁠reported.

Edited by: Louis Oelofse