Kim: North Korea’s nuclear weapons will prevent war

North Korea’s Kim Jong Un characterized his country’s nuclear weapons program as a deterrent against invasion by Western powers during a speech carried by state media on Tuesday.

The Associated Press reported that Kim boasted of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program in a lengthy speech that promised war would never again come to the country’s shores.

“Now, we’ve changed to a country which can defend itself reliably and unwaveringly against high-intensity pressures and military threats and blackmailing by imperialistic reactionaries and hostile forces,” Kim said, according to the AP.

“There won’t be any war on this land again and our national security and future will be guaranteed firmly and permanently because of our reliable, effective self-defensive nuclear deterrent,” the North Korean leader reportedly added.

His remarks signaled an apparent end to the efforts by the Trump administration and North Korea to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula, a goal stated by both parties as President Trump met with Kim last year and became the first U.S. president to step into North Korea.

However, those historic negotiations stalled over the course of 2019, and Trump warned in his own statement late last year that North Korea must denuclearize, claiming at the time that the world was “united” on seeing an end to the North’s nuclear program.

“Kim Jong Un is too smart and has far too much to lose, everything actually, if he acts in a hostile way,” Trump tweeted in December. “He signed a strong Denuclearization Agreement with me in Singapore. He does not want to void his special relationship with the President of the United States or interfere with the U.S. Presidential Election in November.”

“North Korea, under the leadership of Kim Jong Un, has tremendous economic potential, but it must denuclearize as promised. NATO, China, Russia, Japan, and the entire world is unified on this issue!” the president added.

….with the U.S. Presidential Election in November. North Korea, under the leadership of Kim Jong Un, has tremendous economic potential, but it must denuclearize as promised. NATO, China, Russia, Japan, and the entire world is unified on this issue!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 8, 2019