North Korea’s Kim Jong Un called for the “toughest” US strategy at a key party meeting

Seoul:

North Korea will launch its “toughest” strategy to counter the US, state media said on Sunday, reporting on a key year-end party meeting overseen by leader Kim Jong Un.

The nuclear-armed state held a five-day party meeting last week as part of an effort to chart the country’s course for 2025, the official Korean Central News Agency reported in a lengthy message in English.

“The US is the most reactionary state that regards anti-communism as its invariable state policy,” the report said.

He criticized the growing ties between South Korea, the US and Japan, saying it had “expanded into a nuclear military bloc for aggression”.

He also said that South Korea “has turned into an absolute anti-communist US outpost.”

“This reality clearly shows in which direction we should move forward and what we should do and how,” KCNA said.

In this context, Kim’s speech to senior officials “clarified the strategy for the harshest anti-US countermeasure to be launched aggressively,” the report said, without elaborating.

The meeting reviewed the response to widespread flooding earlier this year and also included a pledge to strengthen ties with “friendly” countries.

Such party meetings and Kim’s speeches to officials are typically used by Pyongyang to make key policy announcements.

The KCNA report comes after Seoul’s military claimed more than 1,000 North Korean soldiers have been killed or wounded since entering combat in Ukraine as part of a military deal between Pyongyang and Moscow.

North Korea and Russia have strengthened military ties since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

A landmark defense pact between Pyongyang and Moscow — signed in June when Russian President Vladimir Putin North Korea — came into effect this month.

Putin hailed it as an “innovative document”.

North Korean state media said Friday that Putin sent a New Year’s message to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, saying “bilateral ties between our two countries have been raised after our June talks in Pyongyang.”

Ukraine’s allies have called Pyongyang’s growing involvement in Russia’s war in Ukraine a “dangerous extension” of the conflict.

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