On August 4 Kim Jong Un, general secretary of the Workers’ Party of Korea and president of the State Affairs of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, attended the ceremony of transferring and receiving new-type tactical ballistic missile system and made a speech.

Comrades,

Today we have gathered for this characteristic ceremony to celebrate the transferring of new-type tactical weapons to our army.

We are now witnessing a moment of the course of our state’s defence capability increasing day by day.

Representatives of defence scientists and munitions industry workers, who have worked with devotion in the struggle to produce these tactical weapons of great military significance, which would fill up the major gaps in our state’s defence capability and form a main force in our military forces,

Officers and soldiers of the frontline missile artillerymen’s units, who will soon receive the new weapons,

Dear comrades,

As you see, we are now facing 250 new-type tactical ballistic missile launchers, which our munitions industry workers have produced by their own efforts and technology.

Those weapons, lining up in columns in front of us, will be transferred to our army now and will play an important military role in the border areas of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

This of course means no more than attaining our first-stage goal of building missile forces in the first-line units on the front.

Every year we will show the whole world without filtering the procedure of the change of generations of our military hardware with new ones.

It is because this has enough special effect on deterring war.

The world is witnessing the course of development of our armed forces.

We have become able to take the operational initiative with the overwhelming attack forces and striking means superior to the enemy on all fronts, achieve the multifaceted nature of the spaces of firepower tasks and improve the practical effectiveness of the special physical strength, tactical nuke.

I am very pleased to make public that an important item in the practical guidelines for building up the military capability, which was decided on at the Eighth Congress of our Party and the enlarged meetings of the Central Military Commission of the Party held during the eighth term of the Party Central Committee, has been brought to fruition.

Greeting this moment that declares a great change in our armed forces and their prospective development, I, on behalf of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea and the government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, extend warm thanks to the workers, scientists and officials in the munitions industry, who have proudly carried out their revolutionary tasks of great strategic significance in steadily developing our state’s self-reliant national defence capability.

Comrades,

Thanks to the firepower of this weapon system, presenting a threatening appearance for the first time since the founding of our country and army, we have become able to possess a sure and overwhelming strength with which to contain the enemy’s reckless provocative moves against us.

The fact that these military hardware of a new generation have been produced in less than one year in the circumstances, in which the hostile forces’ challenges and moves of blockade persisted on an unprecedentedly extreme degree, adequately demonstrates the potential and might of our self-reliant defence industry.

By waging a heroic production struggle and presenting the products encapsulating their pure conscience and ennobling outlook on life, our munitions industry workers fully demonstrated the faith and revolutionary nature inherent in them.

What I am most pleased with today is that I have confirmed once again the ennobling spiritual world of the munitions industry workers, who clearly remember their lineage and origin and are faithful and dignified in remaining true to their honourable original name of successors to the Kunjari spirit.

The strength of our defence industry is not merely the might of our defence science. Rather, it is a strength of the absolute loyalty these workers are displaying in unconditionally and perfectly carrying out the Party’s decisions and plans from the standpoint that doing so is their ennobling duty.

Absolute, unconditional and perfect implementation is our munitions industry workers’ invariable raison d'etre, lifeline and unique quality.

True to the orders of the Party Central Military Commission, the workers, scientists and officials in the munitions industry have made strenuous efforts to manufacture hundreds of cutting-edge military hardware, thereby fulfilling the strategic plan for developing our state’s war deterrent to the highest level possible. By doing so, they have instilled an overwhelming sense of dignity and honour in all the patriotic people of this country, and inspired them with renewed confidence in final victory. I highly appreciate them and offer positive encouragement to them in their efforts for more proud successes.

Comrades,

As the relationship of the US-led alliance is, in terms of its nature and character, evolving into a nuclear-based military bloc, the military security environment surrounding the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is facing drastic changes, both strategically and structurally.

This highlights the fact that our state has no reason to rest content with its current level of war deterrent.

To look back on the past five years, we can see that the concept of nuclear has been associated with every military action targeting the DPRK taken by the United States, and now its vassal states have grown reckless enough to share its nukes.

This situation demands that we keep accelerating the development of our Republic’s armed forces for maintaining their supremacy, and also of the self-reliant defence industry that provides solid support to this end.

Genuine peace can be guaranteed only by the build-up of immense strength.

Negotiations and confrontation are among our options, but we must be more thoroughly prepared to cope with the latter–this is the review and conclusion we have derived from the 30-odd years of dealing with the United States, and it is the keynote of our consistent policy towards the United States.

The fact that the United States and the groups of its top-class stooges are overstepping the mark in their outrageous military manoeuvres provides evidence for the justice of our cause, and this compels us to bolster up our self-defensive military capability more perfectly and rapidly. This will inevitably hasten the failure, shame and destruction on the part of the enemy.

The United States we are now confronting is by no means an administration that remains in power for a tenure of some years, but a hostile state that our descendants, too, will have to counter generation after generation. This fact testifies to the inevitability of the steady improvement of our defence capability.

We should possess the capability to cope on our own initiative with new, potential dangers to our security, as well as the various imminent threats by the United States. This is a crucial task for providing a long-term guarantee for defending the sovereignty, security, interests and territorial integrity of our state.

At present, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea has built up its national system of nuclear forces, with which to promptly counter any type of threatening actions by the nuclear-armed enemy states, and we have made steady efforts to make the nuclear forces fully ready for action.

However, witnessing the rapidly-changing global security environment and the reckless expansion of the US-led military bloc system, we have come to a conclusion that the nuclear forces of our state and its nuclear posture should be more thoroughgoing and perfect, and we feel its necessity every day and every minute.

Our mightiness is not what it is now, but it lies in our relentless pursuit of mightiness.

Stagnation in military supremacy is just the beginning of inferiority in defence capability.

We must never forget that if we rest content with the present level of supremacy that has taken so much cost for us to reach, we should pay more later.

Clear is our standpoint in coping with the US moves to aggravate the situation.

If it continues attempting to jeopardize the security of the region in disregard of our repeated warnings, we will make the United States acutely aware that there will be fatal consequences for its own security.

I make it clear once again: Whether engaged in negotiations or confrontation, possessing a great military strength is an obligation and right a sovereign state must never neglect or budge on at any moment.

Unless an end is put to the nuclear threat against us, and as long as there exist the imperialist forces that resort to nukes as a means of their tyranny, there will never be a moment’s halt or a breathing space on our journey for the consolidation of our nuclear war deterrent.

Our strength will continue to evolve, and our military supremacy will deny its limits forever.

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea will resolutely face both imminent and potential challenges by attaining a more refined and improved posture of its nuclear forces as soon as possible to contain any nuclear threats and defend itself from them.

Given the fact that the United States and its vassal forces have been tightening the screw on the DPRK by resorting to military means, Kim Jong Un said, it has been an indisputable option for the DPRK to make sustained efforts to increase its defence capability.

He went on:

Building up the nuclear war deterrent and developing it to the highest level possible is the best option for effectively confronting the nuclear blackmail and multi-faceted isolation schemes by the United States and for earmarking a larger investment for economic development and improvement of the people’s living standards–this is the principled standpoint we have consistently maintained over the last ten or so years since we proclaimed the new line of promoting the country’s economic construction and building up its nuclear forces simultaneously, and its validity and viability have been clearly proved through practice.

We should always bear this in mind, and work hard to achieve the goals of the five-year strategy for defence development advanced by the eighth-term Central Committee of the Party, uncompromisingly and faultlessly, thoroughly and completely.

The munitions industry must never compromise on its absolute mission that increased production of military hardware provides a sure guarantee for safeguarding the country’s sovereignty and enhancing its prestige; it should work hard to achieve greater and prouder successes in attaining the Party’s objectives for modernizing the defence industry and in carrying out its task of producing weapons of the Juche type.

The army units, to which the new-type weapon system is to be transferred, should master the new system as early as possible, actively organize and conduct training in a real-war atmosphere to operate it so effectively as to maximize its efficiency in battle, and maintain a prompt and proper operational posture. In this way, they can creditably implement their military duties to deter war and take the initiative.

What our proud new missile units will receive today is not merely the new weapons.

Like all other weapons of ours, these embody our people’s firm will to put an end to the threats of aggression against our Republic, as well as their spirit of self-respect to make theirs an invincible country that no force will dare to attack and their desire to develop it into a powerful nation.

We will continue to develop and produce more powerful and sophisticated military hardware of our own style and deploy them for action, thus ensuring that the People’s Army keeps gaining in strength over time.

The Party Central Committee will always accompany and properly lead our munitions industry workers, both faithful and dependable, on this responsible and important journey.

Comrades,

Let us bear in mind once again that absolute and matchless self-defence capability provides a sure guarantee for independence, justice and peace.

Ever-developing, inexhaustible strength is fundamental to our eternal victory, genuine peace, happiness and safety.

Let us all strive undauntedly and achieve constant transformations and innovative successes for the independent development of our great state and a peaceful and prosperous new life of our people.