SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — North Korea has passed a law allowing it to carry out a preventive nuclear strike and declaring its status as a nuclear-armed state "irreversible," Pyongyang's official media said Friday.
"There is absolutely no such thing as giving up nuclear weapons first, and there is no denuclearization and no negotiation," leader Kim said during a speech at North Korea's rubber-stamp parliament on Thursday, the Korean Central News Agency reported.
Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies, said the North's latest announcement clearly reaffirmed Pyongyang's stance — that nuclear negotiations are no longer on the table.
Seoul, Washington's key security ally, last month offered Pyongyang an "audacious" aid plan that would include food, energy and infrastructure help in return for the North abandoning its nuclear weapons program.
Nuclear talks and diplomacy between Washington and Pyongyang have been derailed since 2019 over sanctions relief and what Pyongyang would be willing to give up in return.
The law also will allow North Korea to carry out a preventive nuclear strike "automatically" and "immediately to destroy the hostile forces" when a foreign country poses an imminent threat to Pyongyang, KCNA said.
Kim in July said his country was "ready to mobilize" its nuclear capability in any war with the United States and the South.
He reiterated that Pyongyang would never give up the nuclear weapons it needed to counter hostilities from Washington, claiming the US sought to "collapse" his regime at any time.
Meanwhile, Yang told AFP, "Pyongyang is likely to form closer ties with China and Russia against Washington, and… launch its seventh nuclear test in the near future."
American and South Korean officials have repeatedly warned that the North is preparing to carry out what would be its seventh nuclear test.
A blitz of North Korean weapons tests since January included the firing of an intercontinental ballistic missile at full range for the first time since 2017.
