![\"North](\"https:\/\/static.toiimg.com\/thumb\/msid-131956672,imgsize-334942,width-400,height-225,resizemode-4\/131956672.jpg\" "\\"North")
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nNorth Korean leader Kim Jong Un<\/a> has called for the construction of two warships similar to the 5,000-ton destroyer Choe Hyon<\/span> over the next five years, according to state media. He also declared that the country’s naval nuclearisation programme is progressing as planned.Reuters reported that Kim made the remarks during a commissioning ceremony for the largest-ever warship Choe Hyon at the western port of Nampo on Tuesday. According to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the destroyer completed military operational tests over the past 14 months before formally entering service. The destroyer is one of two 5,000-ton class warships launched last April. <\/p>\n North Korea Turns Ukraine Battlefield Into Missile Lab; Kim’s Military Secretly Tests Hwasong-11A<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The vessel’s deployment comes as Pyongyang seeks to expand its naval reach and strengthen its nuclear deterrence.Kim said the navy’s capabilities would now be “something incredible beyond imagination”.“Building a modernised naval base has emerged as a desperate and essential task,” he added.KCNA reported that Kim also said North Korea<\/a> plans to deploy another 5,000-ton destroyer, Kang Kon, in the near future, separate the country has plans to build a larger, 10,000-ton destroyer. Kang Kon was repaired after partially capsizing during a launch ceremony last year.Kim described the commissioning of the Choe Hyon as evidence that the navy’s nuclear armament programme was progressing.“It has clearly become a thing of the past when our navy existed as a force for defending the sea off our land,” Kim said at the ceremony.“It is rising into a full-fledged service equipped with strategic means as the program of equipping the Navy with nuclear weapons is following its planned course unerringly.”According to KCNA, the Choe Hyon will be tasked with defending North Korea’s western coast. State media has previously said the warship is equipped with anti-aircraft and anti-ship systems as well as nuclear-capable ballistic and cruise missiles.Separately, AFP reported that Kim used a three-day meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party to reaffirm plans to strengthen the country’s military capabilities, citing the actions of the United States and South Korea.Kim “in his concluding speech reaffirmed the steadfast policy stand of our Party and state to beef up the national defence capabilities faster,” the news agency said.It reported that Kim accused “the US and the ROK” of becoming increasingly active in the “reinforcement and modernisation of armed forces in the region”, warning that such moves were “pushing the situation in the Korean peninsula to the brink of a nuclear war”.In response, Kim said it was the North’s “steadfast stand” to “further expand and strengthen the powerful and absolutely reliable deterrent for self-defence”.KCNA also reported that the party officials “unanimously recognised that to steadily expand and strengthen the nuclear forces… is the most correct and unique way to actively and confidently cope with the unpredictable international military and political situation”.<\/div>\n