Leader calls for measures to boost national security
SEOUL — North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, called for “offensive measures” to strengthen security at a meeting of senior officials, the staterun media reported Monday, a day before a North Koreanimposed deadline for Washington to make concessions in stalled nuclear talks.
Kim’s comments came at a plenary meeting of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party, which was convened over the weekend amid North Korean warnings that it was prepared to abandon diplomacy and resume nuclear and longrange missile tests.
On Sunday, the second day of the meeting, Kim emphasized “the need to take positive and offensive measures for fully ensuring the sovereignty and security of the country as required by the present situation,” according to the North’s official Korean Central News Agency.
To that end, Kim outlined “the duties of the fields of foreign affairs, munitions industry and armed forces,” the news agency reported. It provided no clarifications, including whether North Korea would officially lift its moratorium on testing intercontinental ballistic missiles or nuclear weapons.
Washington has dismissed the Dec. 31 deadline imposed by North Korea as “artificial,” and has urged Pyongyang to maintain a dialogue and not revert to the provocations that had raised fears of war on the Korean Peninsula two years ago.
But Kim’s remarks about “offensive measures” indicated that North Korea was shifting to a harder line amid faltering diplomacy with Washington.
President Trump, who has met with the North Korean leader at two summit meetings, has repeatedly cited his “good relationship” with him — at one point, he said he and Kim “fell in love.” He has frequently cited the North’s testing moratorium as evidence that his policy of engaging with North Korea is working.
North Korea has not been explicit about what might happen after the Dec. 31 deadline expires, but Kim has warned of finding a “new way” if Washington does not remove the economic sanctions that have crippled his country’s economy or if it tries to force an unpalatable denuclearization deal.
The North Korean leader is set to deliver an annual speech on New Year’s Day, and analysts say he may officially reveal a major policy shift to be adopted at the party’s Central Committee. The committee is one of the highest decisionmaking bodies in North Korea, but it usually rubberstamps any policy proposed by Kim, who rules with totalitarian control of the party, the military and all other levers of power.
In recent weeks, North Korean officials have suggested that they have all but concluded that there is little point in continuing negotiations with the politically vulnerable Trump.
They have hardened their position, vowing to keep denuclearization off the table until Washington first revoked its entire “hostile policy,” including ending joint annual military exercises with South Korea. And they have also reverted to calling Trump insulting names, among them “dotard.”