North Korea strongly condemned recent moves by Korea and Japan to expand exchanges in the defense field and again justified its policy of strengthening nuclear forces.
The Korean Central News Agency reported on the 9th that Kang Cholsu, Deputy Minister of the Institute for Enemy Studies, issued a commentary the previous day titled "A perilous military collusion that invites self-destruction." The Institute for Enemy Studies is presumed to be an agency that changed its name from the "Institute for National Reunification," previously known as an organization under the United Front Department.
In the commentary, Deputy Minister Kang argued, "The reckless game of military collusion by hostile countries unfolding before the eyes of a nuclear-armed state will only become a foolish rash act that brings about their own destruction."
He added, "No matter whether Japan and Korea form a military alliance or do anything else, there will never, ever be any change to the irrevocable balance of power on the Korean Peninsula established by the strongest nuclear-armed state."
Deputy Minister Kang pointed to the recent Korea-Japan defense ministers' talks and cases in which the South Korean Air Force received refueling support from Japan's Self-Defense Forces, noting that military cooperation between the two countries is expanding. He warned that this trend is aimed at concluding the Korea-Japan Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement, or ACSA, calling it "something that cannot be overlooked."
He also argued that "security cooperation between Japan and Korea is a confrontation coalition aimed at our republic, and part of building a 'triangular nuclear cooperation system' to militarily contain neighboring countries by riding on the United States' hegemonic strategy."
He also directly targeted U.S.-South Korea-Japan military cooperation. Deputy Minister Kang said, "This is clearly revealed by the fact that Japan and Korea are speaking with one voice about the 'importance of Japan-U.S.-South Korea trilateral cooperation,' are deploying long-range missiles that far exceed their national defense domains, and are attempting to possess nuclear-powered submarines."
Deputy Minister Kang also argued about North Korea's line of possessing nuclear weapons, saying, "Only by continuously expanding and strengthening nuclear forces and thoroughly exercising the status of a nuclear-armed state can we proactively respond to the sharply and unpredictably changing international situation and safeguard peace and security on the Korean Peninsula and in the region—the one and only path."