According to state media, parliament signed a law that gives the military the right to automatically launch nuclear strikes against the enemy if the country’s leadership is attacked.’
“Our country’s status as a nuclear weapon state has become irreversible,” Kim said, according to the KCNA news agency.
The statements and the new team come in light of frosty relations between North Korea and South Korea, with North Korea blaming Seoul for a covid outbreak in the country earlier this year. South Korea, for its part, has made some overtures to its northern neighbor, most recently on Thursday when it proposed resuming temporary family reunions of relatives separated by the Korean War.
North Korea has stepped up rhetoric and the number of weapons tests this year, and the US and South Korea fear an impending nuclear test, which would be North Korea’s seventh.
Kim also addressed some domestic issues in his speech, among other things he said that the country, which has 26 million inhabitants, would begin vaccination against covid in November.
According to experts, isolated North Korea is trying to strengthen relations with its neighbors to the north, China and Russia. North Korea, along with Syria and Russia, is the only country to recognize Luhansk and Donetsk in Ukraine as independent, and according to the US, Russia is buying ammunition from North Korea to circumvent international sanctions.