IRIA News

More than 800,000 young North Koreans signed up for military service in a single day on March 17, 2023, to “wipe out” the United States and South Korea, the North Korean state media claimed.

According to the North Korean newspaper Rodong Sinmun, “More than 800,000 Youth League officials and young students across the country petitioned for enlistment” in the North Korean Army. “Young people and students in Pyongyang and all over the country” put on the revolutionary military uniform held petition meetings and enlisted for military service, the North Korean media report added.

North Korea’s Rodong Sinmun article stated that “Youth Vanguard rose up at once to join the war to defend the homeland and the war to destroy the enemy,” referring to the United States as “imperialists” and claiming that the country’s enemies are “trying to destroy our independence and right to live and develop.”

North Korean state media article read: “U.S. imperialist and puppet traitors’ moves to provoke a nuclear war… aggressively violating the sovereignty and security interests of our state and are being carried out to the greatest extent in history in terms of aggression and scale, are reaching the limit that can no longer be tolerated”.

Pyongyang claimed that North Korean working young people and commanders have “petitioned to be put at the forefront of the great war for national reunification”.

The North Korean state media also released photos of young male and female students and construction workers waiting in line to sign documents and join the military service at theaters and construction sites. The North Korean state media also claimed that the numbers of military enlistment are “continuously rising” around the country.

The reports from North Korea suggest that thousands of young people volunteered to join the army a day after the country launched its long-range nuclear missile as a warning to South Korea and the United States. It also coincided with South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol’s visit to Japan, where he met with Japanese Prime Minister Kishida and vowed to jointly counter the growing regional challenges, including threats posed by North Korea.

A few hours before the South Korean president landed in Tokyo, Pyongyang test-fired the largest road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), the Hwasong 17. The missile traveled for 6,000 kilometers and reached the highest of about 1000 kilometers before landing in the Sea of Japan.

The Rodong Sinmun article referred to the ongoing military exercises between U.S. and South Korea as “reckless” that are “intensifying tension and confrontation on the Korean peninsula”. North Korea warned that the U.S. and South Korea are “crossing a line” by conducting military exercises in the Korean Peninsula.

The United States and South Korea began two-week-long large-scale joint military exercises on March 13, 2023, to strengthen their combined defensive capabilities. In response to the drills, North Korea demanded an immediate end to the exercises and conducted a series of missile launches warning that the situation could escalate to war.

South Korea conducts frequent military exercises with the United States and has hinted at its willingness to increase its role in the western alliance in the Indo-Pacific region. Seoul is also aligning itself with the Quad, a four-nation bloc consisting of the U.S., Australia, India, and Japan, to safeguard its interests.

Separately on March 17, Russian ambassador to North Korea Alexander Matsegora accused the United States and its allies of exacerbating tensions on the Korean Peninsula. Russia’s ambassador to Pyongyang said, “Russia supported Pyongyang’s call addressed to the international community for opposing provocations” by the United States and its allies.

Matsegora added that the U.S. and its allies’ aggressive actions, including “large-scale exercises and the build-up of strategic offensive weapons in the region and confrontational rhetoric are escalating tensions on the Korean Peninsula, bringing it to an extremely dangerous point and forcing the DPRK to take reasonable countermeasures.”