Leader says Pyongyang ready to improve ties with ‘hostile’ countries
(From AFP)
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un told a rare ruling party congress that the country would only use its nuclear weapons if its sovereignty came under threat from another nuclear power, state media said Sunday.
Kim also promised that the North would follow a policy of non-proliferation, and said Pyongyang was willing to improve and normalise relations with countries that had been “hostile” in the past.
His remarks came in a report delivered on the second day Saturday of the first Workers’ Party congress to be held since 1980.
Kim had opened the conclave on Friday with a defiant defence of the North’s nuclear weapons programme, and praised the “magnificent… and thrilling” test of what Pyongyang claimed was a powerful hydrogen bomb on January 6.
It was the North’s fourth nuclear test, and there are growing signs that a fifth test could be imminent.
“As a responsible nuclear weapons state, our republic will not use a nuclear weapon unless its sovereignty is encroached upon by any aggressive hostile forces with nukes,” Kim was quoted as telling the party gathering on Saturday. Read More