This picture taken on September 9, 2021 and released from North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (C) taking part in a parade of 'paramilitary and public security forces' to celebrate the 73rd founding anniversary of North Korea at Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang. (AFP)
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said the development of weapons is self-defense in the face of aggressive policies from the US and a military buildup in South Korea that is destabilizing the peninsula, state media said on Tuesday.
Pyongyang was only raising its military in self-defense and not to start a war, Kim said in a speech at the defense Development Exhibition, according to a report by state news agency KCNA.
“We are not discussing war with anyone, but rather to prevent war itself and to literally increase war deterrence for the protection of national sovereignty,” he said.
Despite statements from Washington that it holds no hostile feelings toward North Korea, those assertions are hard to believe in the face of its continued “wrong judgements and actions,” Kim said, without elaborating.
