SEOUL, South Korea – North Korean leader Kim Jong Un urged his party to “accelerate” war preparations including its nuclear program, state media said Thursday.

The comments came just a week after Kim warned that Pyongyang would not hesitate to launch a nuclear attack if “provoked” with nuclear weapons.

Kim made the comments at the North’s ongoing year-end party meeting, where he is expected to announce key policy decisions for 2024.

Kim called on the party to “further accelerate war preparations” in all sectors, including nuclear weapons and civil defense, Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency reported.

He also stressed that the “military situation” on the Korean peninsula has become “extreme” due to “unprecedented” confrontations against the North with Washington.

Seoul, Tokyo and Washington have stepped up defense cooperation amid a record-breaking series of weapons tests by Pyongyang this year, recently activating a system to share real-time data on North Korean missile launches.

In early December, a US nuclear submarine arrived in the South Korean port city of Busan, and Washington flew its long-range bombers in exercises with Seoul and Tokyo.

The North has previously described the participation of US strategic assets – such as B-52 bombers – in joint exercises on the Korean peninsula as “deliberate provocative steps by the US towards nuclear war”.

Pyongyang successfully launched a reconnaissance satellite in 2023, enshrined its status as a nuclear power in its constitution and tested the most advanced intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in its arsenal.

Earlier this week, Kim defined 2023 as a “year of great turning and great change” in which Pyongyang experienced “revelatory victories.”

Last week, the United Nations nuclear agency said a second reactor at North Korea’s Yongbyon nuclear facility appeared to be operational, calling it “deeply regrettable.”

North Korea is likely to “place tactical nuclear weapons in areas near the inter-Korean border” and further advance its nuclear program in the new year, said Ahn Chan-il, a defector-turned-researcher who heads the World Institute for North Korea Studies, told AFP.

Pyongyang would take such steps to put “great pressure” on South Korea and the United States while maintaining close ties with traditional allies Russia and China, he added.

“Nuclear confrontation”

At the party conference at the end of 2022, Kim called for “an exponential increase in the country’s nuclear arsenal.”

The United States and South Korea held the second meeting of their nuclear advisory group in Washington earlier this month, where they discussed nuclear deterrent options in the event of a conflict with the North.

They warned that a nuclear attack by Pyongyang on the United States or South Korea would mean the end of the Kim regime.

A North Korean Defense Ministry spokesman then criticized allies’ plans to add a nuclear operations exercise to annual joint military drills in 2024, calling it “an open declaration of nuclear confrontation.”

Pyongyang declared itself an “irreversible” nuclear power last year and has repeatedly said it will never give up its nuclear program, which the regime sees as vital to its survival.

Since the first nuclear test in 2006, the United Nations Security Council has passed numerous resolutions calling on North Korea to end its nuclear and missile programs.