North Korea on Monday condemned a recent South Korea-US military exercise integrating Washington's nuclear capabilities with Seoul's conventional forces, and vowed to accelerate its nuclear weapons buildup as an "immutable" national defense policy.
Kim Jong-sik, first vice department director of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea, accused Washington and Seoul of conducting a nuclear war rehearsal targeting Pyongyang, according to a statement carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency.
The statement specifically targeted Iron Mace, a bilateral exercise held behind closed doors from Sept. 29 to Oct. 2, which focuses on coordinating US nuclear capabilities with South Korea's conventional military assets.
Kim described the exercise as "the most hideous nuclear war rehearsal aimed at using nuclear weapons against the DPRK," using the acronym for North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
He argued that the exercise demonstrated Washington's continued hostility toward Pyongyang and justified the North's efforts to expand its nuclear arsenal.
"The reality teaches once again the underlying truth that strength is peace and peace is guaranteed only by strength," Kim said.
He stressed that Pyongyang would continue strengthening its nuclear deterrent at an accelerated pace to counter both existing and potential threats, calling the policy irreversible.
"Immutable is the DPRK's national defence policy to strengthen the nuclear war deterrent of the country with increasing speed," he said.
Kim also took aim at a series of other military exercises involving the United States and its regional allies, including South Korea's Hoguk field training exercise, the large-scale South Korea-US Freedom Flag air drills and Keen Sword, a joint US-Japan exercise conducted from Oct. 19 to 29.
He accused Washington of expanding its military presence and operational capabilities across the region, citing the deployment of US Marine personnel to South Korea for multidomain reconnaissance training and the participation of US-based fighter jets in exercises in Japan.
Such activities, he claimed, demonstrated that Washington and its allies were intensifying preparations for a potential military confrontation with North Korea.
Kim maintained that Pyongyang's nuclear arsenal was intended to safeguard its sovereignty and security, as well as regional peace, while emphasizing the need to counter its adversaries with increasingly powerful nuclear capabilities.
The latest warning came after South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff confirmed that the allies had conducted the four-day Iron Mace exercise at the JCS headquarters in Seoul.
Iron Mace has been held annually since 2024 as part of efforts to implement the joint guidelines established under the South Korea-US Nuclear Consultative Group, a bilateral mechanism designed to strengthen extended deterrence against North Korean nuclear threats.
The Lee Jae Myung administration has refrained from publicly announcing the exercises in advance, apparently mindful of potential backlash from Pyongyang.
Notably, the statement was issued by Kim Jong-sik, a senior official overseeing the North's munitions industry, rather than Kim Yo-jong, director of the General Affairs Department of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea and sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, or the country's foreign or defense ministries, which have more commonly delivered warnings against allied military activities.
Lim Eul-chul, a professor at Kyungnam University's Institute for Far Eastern Studies, said Kim Jong-sik's involvement was particularly significant given his role in overseeing the North's weapons development programs.
Lim described Kim as a key figure in North Korea's defense science and technology sector who effectively directs the Workers' Party's Munitions Industry Department and the Missile Administration.
"The statement signals Pyongyang's strong determination to further accelerate the operational deployment of tactical nuclear weapons and asymmetric capabilities in response to the allies' integrated nuclear and conventional military exercises," Lim said.
The choice of a senior weapons development official to deliver the message could therefore suggest that Pyongyang is emphasizing concrete advances in its nuclear and missile capabilities, rather than limiting its response to diplomatic condemnation.
South Korea's Unification Ministry, however, played down the significance of the statement, describing it as a reiteration of the North's established position.
"Substantively, we assess that North Korea has reaffirmed its longstanding position of condemning US-led combined military exercises as hostile acts against the North and using them to justify strengthening its own nuclear deterrent," ministry spokesperson Yoon Min-ho said during a regular press briefing Monday.
mkjung@heraldcorp.com
