Washington’s decapitation operation in Iran would push Pyongyang to feel “vindicated” in developing nuclear weapons for its own security and move closer to China and Russia to bolster its deterrence capabilities, according to analysts.
On Wednesday, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un inspected the test firing of what the country’s state media called a “strategic cruise missile” from the new 5,000-tonne naval destroyer Choe Hyon before the vessel’s official commissioning.
Kim hailed the warship as a “new symbol of sea-defence capability” after it completed a shakedown cruise as part of the destroyer’s sea trials on Tuesday.
The North Korean leader said his country had seen “satisfactory progress” in building “the most powerful navy” equipped with nuclear-capable systems.
“Our navy’s forces for attacking from under and above water will grow rapidly … All these successes constitute a radical change in defending our maritime sovereignty, something that we have not achieved for half a century,” Kim said, according to the state-run Korean Central News Agency.
“If any forces are apprehensive about our efforts to build up our defence capabilities, this means that they are precisely our enemy.”
