North Korea’s Kim slams US-Seoul nuclear submarine deal as ‘offensive act’

Kim Jong Un, the leader of North Korea, criticizes a new nuclear submarine agreement signed by the United States and South Korea, citing the country’s media reports that he is touring the country’s submarine production facility as a threat to the stability of the Korean Peninsula.

According to state news agency KCNA, Kim claimed the agreement between Seoul and Washington was an “offensive act severely violating]Pyongyang’s] security and maritime sovereignty and a threat to security that must be countered.”

According to the report, Kim claimed that it was now urgent to “further accelerate the radical development of the modernization and nuclear weaponization of the North Korean naval force.”

Kim made the remarks during a tour of a facility where Pyongyang is “working on an 8, 700-tonnage nuclear-powered strategic guided missile submarine” on Wednesday.

The North Korean leader also oversaw the test of a new high-altitude long-range anti-air missile into the “East Sea of Korea,” as the news outlet called it on Wednesday.

The missile successfully hit a mock target at a distance of 200 kilometers (124 miles) according to KCNA, which confirmed the test’s success.

Seoul announced today that it was looking into “standalone agreements” with the US to acquire nuclear-powered submarine technology, according to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency.

Following a meeting with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, South Korea’s national security adviser, Wi Sung-lac, announced that US law forbids the transfer of nuclear weapons for military use.

According to Wi, Australia and the US are pursuing similar agreements to build their own nuclear-powered submarines, and negotiations are expected to start in the spring of next year.

Vladimir Putin, the leader of Russia, also emailed Kim a New Year’s greeting on Wednesday, thanking him for his persistent military support for the Ukrainian conflict. Since 2024, North Korea has deployed thousands of soldiers to fight alongside Russian forces in Ukraine and some of Russia’s roughest regions.

According to a report from KCNA, Putin said, “The heroic entry of Korean soldiers into the battles for liberating the Kursk region from occupiers and the subsequent activities of Korean engineers in the land of Russia demonstrated the invincible friendship and militant fraternity” between Russia and North Korea.