Seoul:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has blamed the United States for increasing tensions and provocations, saying the Korean peninsula has never faced the same threat of nuclear war as state media’s CNA reported. said on Friday.

In a speech at a military exhibition in Pyongyang on Thursday, Kim said his previous experience of negotiating with Washington only highlighted its “aggressive and hostile” policy toward Pyongyang, KCNA said.

“Never before have the warring parties on the Korean peninsula faced such a dangerous and intense confrontation that it could escalate into a highly destructive thermonuclear war,” Kim said, according to KCNA.

“We have already gone as far as we could in terms of talks with the US, but what we have come to believe is not the superpower’s desire to stay together, but its total position of power. And we have an aggressive and hostile policy that can never change.”

During US President-elect Donald Trump’s first term, he and Kim held three unprecedented meetings in Singapore, Hanoi and the Korean border in 2018 and 2019.

But his diplomacy has failed to produce any concrete results because of differences between US demands for North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons and Kim’s demands for sanctions relief.

Trump has long touted his relationship with Kim, saying last month that the two countries “could have had a nuclear war with millions of people dead” but that they avoided it thanks to their relationship.

North Korean state media has yet to publicly mention Trump’s re-election.

KCNA said Kim, in the speech, called for developing and upgrading weapons to the “highly advanced” and vowed to advance defense capabilities to strengthen the country’s strategic position.

The event, called the Defense Development Exhibition, showcased strategic and tactical weapons.

Kim’s latest speech came amid international criticism of increased military cooperation between Pyongyang and Moscow, after North Korea sent more than 10,000 troops to Russia to support its war against Ukraine.

Last week, Kim urged the country’s military to improve its war-fighting capabilities, accusing the US and its allies of escalating tensions to the “worst period in history” and calling the Korean peninsula “the world’s Hot spot bigger than “.

(Other than the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

(Translation of Tags)North Korea Russia(T)Kim Jong Un(T)North Korea US



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