SEOUL, South Korea – North Korean leader Kim Jong Un vowed to accelerate the country’s military buildup at a party meeting, state media reported Tuesday, citing military modernisation efforts by South Korea and the United States in the region.

Pyongyang is under multiple sets of sanctions over its nuclear programme, and the two Koreas remain technically at war because their 1950-53 conflict ended in an armistice rather than a peace treaty.

“Comrade Kim Jong Un in his concluding speech reaffirmed the steadfast policy stand of our Party and state to beef up the national defence capabilities faster,” the official Korean Central News Agency quoted him as saying in a dispatch.

The speech was delivered as Kim presided over a three-day party plenary meeting that wrapped up on Monday, during which senior officials reviewed policy initiatives, KCNA said.

It went on to quote Kim as saying “the US and the ROK are pushing forward with the ROK’s possession of a nuclear submarine while getting evermore undisguised in their moves towards the reinforcement and modernisation of armed forces in the region,” referring to the South by the initials of its official name.

In the face of such developments, it was the “steadfast stand” of the North to accelerate efforts to “further expand and strengthen the powerful and absolutely reliable deterrent for self-defence,” Kim said.

On the nuclear arsenal, KCNA said the plenary meeting “unanimously recognised” that its nuclear status was “the most correct and unique way to actively and confidently cope with the unpredictable international military and political situation”.

Pyongyang has repeatedly declared itself an “irreversible” nuclear state since a 2019 summit between Kim and Trump in Hanoi collapsed over the scope of denuclearisation and sanctions relief.

Kim’s powerful sister, Yo Jong, said earlier this month that the North’s nuclear policy was a “line of no retreat”, reiterating the regime’s position that it has no intention of giving up its nuclear arsenal.

On the economic front, the plenary meeting expressed its “full support for and approval of the plan to completely renovate coal-mining areas nationwide,” while Kim called for “eliminating the centuries-old backwardness remaining in the coal industry”.