Kim vows to irreversibly cement North Korea’s nuclear status

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has pledged to irreversibly cement his country’s status as a nuclear power while maintaining a hard-line stance toward South Korea, which he called the “most hostile” state, State media said on Tuesday.

In a speech to Pyongyang’s rubber-stamp parliament, Kim accused the United States of global “State terrorism and aggression,” in an apparent reference to the war in West Asia, and said the North will play a more forceful role in a united front against Washington amid rising anti-American sentiment. But Kim didn’t call out US President Donald Trump by name and said that whether his adversaries “choose confrontation or peaceful coexistence is up to them, and we are prepared to respond to any choice.”

His comments largely aligned with his statements at last month’s ruling Workers’ Party Congress, where he vilified Seoul but left open the door for dialogue with the Trump administration, urging Washington to drop its demands for the North’s nuclear disarmament as a precondition for talks.

State media said the Supreme People’s Assembly, which concluded its two-day session on Monday, passed a revised constitution but did not specify the changes.

There had been expectations that the revisions would codify South Korea as a permanent enemy and remove references to shared nationhood. That’s in line with Kim’s hard-line stance after he declared in 2024 that the North would abandon its long-term goal of a peaceful unification with the South.

Analysts say Kim’s vilification of South Korea reflects his view that Seoul, which helped arrange his first meetings with Trump in 2018 and 2019, is no longer a useful intermediary with Washington but an obstacle to his push for a more assertive regional role.

He has also shown sensitivity to South Korean soft power, driving aggressive campaigns to block the influence of its culture and language among North Koreans as he seeks to tighten his family’s authoritarian grip.

In his speech, Kim expressed pride in the country’s rapid expansion of nuclear weapons and missiles in recent years, calling it the “right” choice to counter future threats and “hegemonic pursuits” by “gangsterlike” imperialists, a term the North often uses for the United States and its allies.