North Korea has notified a new law which allows the country to carry out a preventive nuclear strike and declare its nuclear-armed state “irreversible”.
According to Korean Central News Agency, the new law was passed on Thursday by the Supreme People’s Assembly and it empowers North Korea to carry out a preventive nuclear strike “automatically” and “immediately to destroy hostile forces,” when another country poses an imminent threat to Pyongyang.
With the law, “the status of our country as a nuclear weapons state has become irreversible,” KCNA said quoting leader Kim Jong Un as saying.
The law also bans any sharing of nuclear arms or technology with other countries.
The announcement comes in the wake of stalled talks on denuclearization and concern that North Korea resuming nuclear testing for the first time since 2017. This development seems to be an outcome of the failure of a series of high-level summits with then-United States President Donald Trump over sanctions relief.
North Korea has conducted several weapons tests in 2022 — launching more than 30 ballistic weapons, including the first intercontinental ballistic missile in five years.
