North Korea passed a new law declaring it to be a nuclear weapon state, which the leader of the country Kim Jong Un called as an ‘irreversible move’. According to him, the country would ‘never give up its nuclear weapons and would not indulge in denuclearization as he advocated the passage of the law, the North Korean state media reported on Friday.

The
new law upholds Pyongyang’s right to the usage of preemptive nuclear strikes
for the sake of protecting itself. They updated one previous stance according
to which it was supposed to keep its weapon only until the other countries
denuclearized and would not use the weapon in a preemptive manner on
non-nuclear states.

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The
law will “allow North Korea to carry out a preventive nuclear strike automatically
and immediately to destroy hostile forces, when a foreign country poses an
imminent threat to Pyongyang,” the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported.

With
the newly enacted law, “the status of our country as a nuclear weapons
state has become irreversible,” KCNA quoted Kim Jong Un as saying.

Kim
said that nuclear weapons stand for the “dignity, body, and absolute power of
the state”, as he welcomed the decision of the Supreme People’s Assembly to
pass the law by means of a unanimous vote.

“The
adoption of laws and regulations related to the national nuclear force policy
is a remarkable event as it’s our declaration that we legally acquired war
deterrence as a means of national defense,” Kim said.

“As
long as nuclear weapons exist on Earth, and imperialism and the anti-North
Korean maneuvers of the US and its followers remain, our road to strengthening
our nuclear force will never end,” he added.

The
law does not allow the sharing of nuclear technology with other countries. 

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The
law is passed at a time when there exists regional tension regarding the
expansion of North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile programs. 

Kim
has threatened the United States and its allies about a nuclear conflict in
Asia, very recently.

Simultaneously,
the US has also become very concerned about whether North Korea is preparing to
conduct its first underground nuclear test in years.