Kim Jong-un: North Korean leader calls for 'rapid' nuclear buildup

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un says his country needs to rapidly expand its nuclear armament and has called US-South Korea military exercises an “obvious expression of their will to provoke war”.

South Korea and the United States kicked off joint military drills this week, including testing an upgraded response to heightened North Korean nuclear threats.

Pyongyang regularly criticises such drills as rehearsals for invasion and sometimes responds with weapons tests, but Seoul and Washington say they are purely defensive.

The 11-day annual exercises, called Ulchi Freedom Shield, will be on a similar scale to 2024 but adjusted by rescheduling 20 out of 40 field training events to September, South Korea’s military said earlier.

Those delays come as South Korean President Lee Jae Myung says he wants to ease tensions with North Korea, though analysts are sceptical about Pyongyang’s response.

The exercises were a “clear expression of ... their intention to remain most hostile and confrontational” to North Korea, Kim said during his visit to a navy destroyer on Monday, according to a state media KCNA report on Tuesday.

The security environment required the North to “rapidly expand” its nuclear armament, noting that recent US-South Korea exercises involved a “nuclear element”.

A report by the Federation of American Scientists last year concluded that while North Korea may have produced enough fissile material to build up to 90 nuclear warheads, it had likely assembled closer to 50.

North Korea plans to build a third 5000-tonne Choe Hyon-class destroyer by October next year and is testing cruise and anti-air missiles for those warships.