![\"North](\"https:\/\/c.ndtvimg.com\/2021-10\/m1dr7m1c_kim-jong-un_625x300_12_October_21.jpg\"\/ "\\"North")
<\/div>\nKim Jong Un said that the status of country as a nuclear weapons state has become “irreversible”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Seoul: <\/b><\/p>\n
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”, state media said Friday.<\/p>\n
The announcement comes at a time of crumbling ties between the North and South, with Pyongyang blaming Seoul for the outbreak of Covid-19 in its territory and conducting a record number of weapons tests this year.<\/p>\n
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) said.<\/p>\n
With the newly enacted law, “the status of our country as a nuclear weapons state has become irreversible,” leader Kim Jong Un said, according to KCNA.<\/p>\n
Kim in July said his country was “ready to mobilise” its nuclear capability in any war with the United States and the South.<\/p>\n
He reiterated that Pyongyang would never give up the nuclear weapons it needed to counter hostilities from Washington.<\/p>\n
“There is absolutely no such thing as giving up nuclear weapons first, and there is no denuclearisation and no negotiation,” he said during a speech at North Korea’s rubber-stamp parliament on Thursday, according to KCNA.<\/p>\n
‘Height of absurdity’<\/strong><\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Washington and South Korean officials have repeatedly warned that the North is preparing to carry out what would be its seventh nuclear test.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Seoul 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 programme.<\/p>\n But Pyongyang ridiculed the offer, calling it the “height of absurdity” and a deal Pyongyang would never accept.<\/p>\n South Korea’s hawkish president Yoon Suk-yeol said last month his administration had no plans to pursue its own nuclear deterrent.<\/p>\n (Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n