North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said the country will permanently cement its status as a nuclear-armed state and treat South Korea as its “most hostile” enemy. Speaking to the Supreme People’s Assembly, the state-run media quoted Kim as saying, “The dignity of the nation, its national interest and its ultimate victory can only be guaranteed by the strongest of power,” and that Pyongyang would “continue to consolidate our absolutely irreversible status as a nuclear power.”
Lawmakers at the rubber-stamp legislature approved a 2026 state budget that raises defense spending to 15.8% of total expenditure. Kim again rejected trading disarmament for security guarantees, a long-standing US demand.
Kim accused Washington of “global terrorism and aggression,” framing the US-Israel-Iran conflict as proof that force can override international norms. “The current world reality… clearly teaches what the true guarantee of a state’s existence and peace is,” he said. Without naming US President Donald Trump, Kim said his opponents can “choose confrontation or peaceful coexistence… and we are prepared to respond to any choice.”
South Korean analysts said Pyongyang’s comments reflect its belief that nuclear weapons deter intervention. “These circumstances have reinforced Pyongyang’s long-standing argument that nuclear weapons are essential” for regime survival, said Yang Moo-jin of the University of North Korea Studies.
The speech followed Kim’s reappointment as head of the State Affairs Commission, North Korea’s highest policy-making body. Pyongyang concluded a two-day session of the Supreme People’s Assembly, during which it passed a revised version of the constitution. Experts expect revisions that remove references to shared nationhood with South Korea and characterize the South as a permanent enemy.
South Korea’s Blue House called Kim’s declaration of the South as “the most hostile state” undesirable for peaceful coexistence on the peninsula, Yonhap reported.
Edited by: Louis Oelofse