Pyongyang
North Korea said it will bolster its defense against the United States and evaluate “restarting all temporally suspended activities,” according to state media KCNA on Thursday.
The announcement is a possible reference to its self-imposed moratorium on testing nuclear weapons, which has been in place since 2017.
Though Pyongyang is barred from testing ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons under international law, it has continued developing the weapons in violation of the ban.
In a report about a Politburo meeting held on Wednesday, KCNA reported the “hostile policy and military threat by the US have reached a danger line that can not be overlooked any more,” and acknowledged the need to prepare for “a long-term confrontation” with the US.
The report said North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has instructed officials to bolster ways to “efficiently control the hostile moves of the US” and reconsider trust-building measures with the US.
“It gave an instruction to a sector concerned to reconsider in an overall scale the trust-building measures that we took on our own initiative on a preferential ground and to promptly examine the issue of restarting all temporally suspended activities,” KCNA reported.
The South Korean military is closely monitoring North Korea’s activities following Thursday’s report, according to Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff spokesman Kim Jun-rak.
It comes as North Korea has ramped up its missile tests during the month of January. Last week, the US announced sanctions on five North Korean individuals and one entity supporting the regime’s ballistic missile related programs.
