North Korea revealed its nuclear weapons plan in the untimely event of its leader Kim Jong Un’s death. According to the reclusive country, if Kim Jong Un is incapacitated in an attack, Pyongyang will launch a nuclear attack “automatically and immediately.”
According to a new law passed by Kim Jong Un’s rubber-stamp parliament, Politico reported. The legislation also allows for preemptive nuclear strikes if North Korea faces threat of foreign weapons.
The announcement comes as the dictator vowed to never part with the nuclear and missiles program. According to the 38-year-old leader, it took North Korea decades to build its nuclear weapons program.
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North Korea will “never give up nuclear weapons and there is absolutely no denuclearization, and no negotiation and no bargaining chip to trade in the process,” Kim declared Friday, according to state-run media.
While it was earlier presumed that North Korea will use its nukes only in the event of a foreign nation – likely a combination of the US, Japan and South Korea – attacks Pyongyang, the law now states that missiles can fly in the event of any weapons of mass destruction attack.
“This raises serious questions about the North’s ability to get accurate intelligence and what the threshold of evidence will be to make those judgment calls,” said Jenny Town, a senior fellow and director of the 38 North program at the Stimson Center, said, according to Politico.
The move is believed to be in response to South Korean President Yoon Suk-Yeol, who previously suggested that a preemptive strike on the “kill chain” in North Korea is necessary as Pyongyang prepares an attack.
“In case the command and control system over the state nuclear forces is placed in danger owing to an attack by hostile forces, a nuclear strike shall be launched automatically and immediately to destroy the hostile forces including the starting point of provocation and the command according to the operation plan decided in advance,” the new law reads.
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Ankit Panda, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said: “The new law underscores the dangers of the U.S. and South Korea focusing on leadership decapitation strategies… It was quite predictable that the North Koreans would go down the path of threatening automatic retaliation if Kim is killed.”