North Korean leader Kim Jong-un warns of new Cold War in the face of ‘Asian NATO’

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has warned of new Cold War days after his return from Russia.

Russian president Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un examine a launch pad of Soyuz rockets during their meeting in September.

Kim Jong-un has warned of a “new Cold War” and promised to rapidly expand North Korea’s arsenal of nuclear warheads as a deterrent against the “Asian-version NATO”.

He was speaking at a gathering of Pyongyang’s tame parliament, which revised the constitution to enshrine North Korea’s status as a permanent nuclear state. His talk of a new Cold War comes after his visit to Russia this month, where he and President Vladimir Putin promised each other military and technological aid.

“Now that the US, steeped in the Cold War mentality, has gone to extremes in its anti-DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] military provocations, it is very important for the DPRK to accelerate the modernisation of nuclear weapons in order to hold the definite edge of strategic deterrence,” Kim said.

He spoke of “the need to push ahead with the work for exponentially boosting the production of nuclear weapons and diversifying the nuclear strike means”.

Kim spoke at a gathering of the country’s parliament. Picture: AP/The Times

Kim’s words spell out what has become pronounced in the past five years: the existence of two polarised camps in East Asia, divided politically and diplomatically, and now engaged in a tense military stand-off.

The US and South Korea, which used to avoid rising to North Korean provocations, now respond to them in kind, dispatching aircraft carriers and nuclear-capable bombers and submarines to conduct exercises around the peninsula in a co-ordinated show of force.

As Kim and Putin have moved closer, Japan and South Korea have overcome historical resentments to build up a three-way partnership with the US.

“The US … has maximised its nuclear war threats to our republic by resuming the large-scale nuclear war joint drills with clear aggressive nature and putting the deployment of its strategic nuclear assets near the Korean peninsula on a permanent basis,” Kim said.

“The accelerated establishment of the triangular military alliance with Japan and the ‘Republic of Korea’ finally resulted in the emergence of the Asian-version NATO, the root cause of war and aggression.

“This is just the worst actual threat, not threatening rhetoric or an imaginary entity.”

The Times