Nuclear button always on my desk, warns Kim
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in his New Year's Day address said on Monday that his country has completed its nuclear arsenal and he has the ignition button ready "always on" his desk.
"We achieved the goal of completing our state nuclear force in 2017," Kim said in a televised message broadcast by the North Korean state network, reports IANS.
"A button is always on my desk," the North Korean leader said, adding that "this is reality, not a threat". He called for an increase in production of nuclear warheads and ballistic missiles for operational deployment.
He stressed the need to "mass-produce nuclear warheads and ballistic missiles and accelerate their deployment," the South Korean news agency Yonhap quoted Kim as saying.
Kim also said that his country's nuclear forces have gained a powerful deterrent against the US and that Pyongyang's weapons were capable of hitting all of its mainland territory.
Kim also urged Washington and Seoul to end their joint military manoeuvres, which the regime criticised as an attempt to invade its country, and extended his hand to Seoul, saying that North and South Korea must improve their relations.
The North says its weapons programme is designed to be able to target the US mainland and tested increasingly longerrange intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) throughout 2017.
US President Donald Trump has responded to each test with his own amplified declarations, threatening to "totally destroy" Pyongyang and taunting Kim, saying the North Korean leader was on "a suicide mission".
But far from persuading Kim to give up his nuclear drive, analysts say Trump's tough talk may have prompted the North Korean leader to drive through with his dangerous quest.
"(The North) can cope with any kind of nuclear threats from the US and has a strong nuclear deterrence that is able to prevent the US from playing with fire," Kim said on Monday.
"The US must realise this is not blackmail but reality." His comments come after a former top US military officer warned that the United States is now closer than it has ever been to a nuclear war with the North, with little hope of a diplomatic solution to the crisis. Mike Mullen, a former chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, said the Trump presidency had helped create "an incredibly dangerous climate", in an interview on ABC's "This Week".
"We're actually closer, in my view, to a nuclear war with North Korea and in that region than we have ever been," he said.
KIM SAYING North and South Korea must improve their relations and his readiness to have talks is also seen as softening of stand