North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un has branded South Korea his country’s ‘principal enemy’ and warned he would not hesitate to annihilate it.
The dictator was also quoted by state media saying he had ‘no intention of avoiding war’ with his country’s historic enemy to the south.
The report follows recent live-fire exercises by Pyongyang’s military near the contested maritime border that prompted counter-drills and evacuation orders for residents on two South Korean border islands.
‘The historic time has come at last when we should define as a state most hostile toward the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea the entity called the Republic of Korea,’ Kim was reported as saying by the official Korean Central News Agency.
Kim, urging factory workers to modernise and ‘produce more weapons’, said he had ‘no intention of avoiding a war’ and warned he would have no hesitation in ‘annihilating’ South Korea, KCNA added.
This news comes after nearly 50 countries joined the United States in condemning North Korea’s alleged transfers of weapons to Vladimir Putin’s forces for use in Ukraine, which would violate rafts of United Nations sanctions.
The White House last week said it has evidence that Russia had fired at Ukraine additional ballistic missiles provided by North Korea.
It accused the North of sending both missiles and launchers to Russia in what it called a ‘significant and concerning escalation’ of its support for Putin’s war effort.