North Korean parliament amends constitution for new nuclear policy

Asia-Pacific, News September 29, 2023 , by IRIA No Comments

North Korea’s parliament approved a constitutional amendment to execute the country’s new nuclear arms policy on September 27, 2023. North Korea’s Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un said that the constitutional amendment will help North Korea hold a ‘definite edge’ in deterring threats.

According to North Korea’s state-owned media outlet, KCNA, the constitutional amendment remained a “crucial agenda item” during the parliamentary debate before being approved with a high majority. The KCNA report explained that the new constitutional amendment would establish North Korea’s pursuit of a nuclear force “as the basic law of the state”.

“The DPRK’s nuclear force-building policy has been made permanent as the basic law of the state, which no one is allowed to flout with anything,” North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said as he addressed the parliament following the constitutional amendment.

He called for “exponentially boosting the production of nuclear weapons and diversifying the nuclear strike means and deploying them in different services”. Kim added that the U.S. has gone to extremes in its military provocations with drills and the deployment of strategic assets in the region, threatening North Korea’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

North Korea parliament session — ^{The 9th Session of the 14th Supreme People’s Assembly of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is held at the Mansudae Assembly Hall, in Pyongyang, North Korea, on September 28, 2023. (Image Credit: KCNA/via Reuters)}

He urged officials to “further promote solidarity with the nations standing against the U.S. and the West’s strategy for hegemony,” denouncing trilateral cooperation between the U.S., South Korea, and Japan as the “Asian-version NATO”.

A few days prior, North Korea’s ambassador to the United Nations Kim Song warned that his country could be pushed to nuclear war by “hostile threats from outside”. During his address at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Song said, “The Korean peninsula is in a hair-trigger situation with imminent danger of nuclear war breakout.”

Increase in defense spending

Despite facing a severe economic crisis and being under heavy economic sanctions, Pyongyang has been putting an extreme focus on increasing its defense spending while aggressively expanding the country’s nuclear program.

North Korea has rapidly ramped up its military rhetoric by continuing missile launches and threatening to shoot down U.S. reconnaissance planes. Pyongyang’s military effort saw an increase especially after the U.S. Navy made a port call for its nuclear-capable submarine in South Korea for the first time in four decades.

North Korea military parade 2023 — ^{North Korea showed off new weapons and drones at the military parade that marked the 70th anniversary of the end of the Korean War, celebrated in North Korea as “Victory Day”. (Image Credit: KCNA)}

At the start of this year, North Korea’s parliament approved the defense budget for 2023. the largest share of the national budget was devoted to defense spending, standing at 15.9%.

Earlier in August this year, North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un made a major shakeup in the country’s military leadership and called for a boost in weapons production as he urged his military to prepare for war.