Kim Jong Un calls to ‘accelerate’ war preparations following ‘confrontation moves’ from the US

North Korea’s Kim Jong Un called for the acceleration of war preparations in response to what he described as “unprecedented” confrontation moves from the United States, state media reported Wednesday.

The comments came during an annual multi-day meeting of North Korea’s ruling party, the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK), during which North Korean officials wrap up the year and outline policy objectives for the following year.

The remarks also follow months of heightened rhetoric from North Korea about the so-called threat coming from the United States and its alliances with South Korea, Japan and other democratic countries near the peninsula. Kim has accused the United States of taking provocative moves with its military, arguing for the need to increase readiness.

Kim, in his remarks, “set forth the militant tasks for the People’s Army and the munitions industry, nuclear weapons and civil defence sectors to further accelerate the war preparations,” according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA)

These directions were made, Kim claimed, on “the basis of in-depth analysis of the grave political and military situation in the Korean peninsula which reached extreme due to the anti-DPRK confrontation moves of the U.S. and its vassal forces unprecedented in history.”

KCNA also reported that North Korea plans to increase its “strategic cooperation” with “anti-imperialist countries.”

“He clarified the independent principle of the WPK to expand and develop the relations of strategic cooperation with the anti-imperialist independent countries and dynamically wage the anti-imperialist joint action and struggle on an international scale under the rapidly changing world geo-political situation and indicated the orientation of the external affairs and the work towards the south,” the report read.

This month, the White House issued a direct warning to North Korea in the wake of the heightened rhetoric frequently used by Kim. The warning also came after North Korea launched a spy satellite, in what the U.S. and its allies deemed to be a violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions.

The White House warned that any “nuclear attack by North Korea against the United States or its allies is unacceptable and will result in the end of the Kim regime.”

“The United States reaffirmed its unwavering commitment to provide extended deterrence to the ROK, backed by the full range of U.S. capabilities including nuclear,” the statement read, referring to the Republic of Korea, the official name for South Korea.