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, provided on-the-spot guidance for the building of an 8 700-tonnage nuclear-powered strategic guided missile submarine.

Comrade Kim Jong Un was accompanied by leading officials in the sectors of the warship-building industry and the defence science research and production.

He went round the site of the building of the nuclear-powered submarine and received a report on its progress.

Workers, scientists and technicians in the warship-building field, who are all out in the honourable struggle for implementing the WPK's policy of modernizing the navy, are pushing ahead with the building of a strategic nuclear attack submarine, one of the five major tasks for developing the defence capabilities set forth at the Eighth Congress of the Party, by giving full play to the great power of self-reliance and inexhaustible patriotic enthusiasm.

Kim Jong Un stressed once again the importance and significance of the building of the strategic nuclear attack submarine in carrying out the self-reliant defence policy of the WPK and the government of the DPRK.

Our defence policy is a defensive policy based on the greatest offensive power from A to Z and to this end we regard the super-powerful offensive capability as the best shield for national security in building up the armed forces, he said.

It is the noble mission and duty of our generation to further strengthen the nuclear shield that represents the prestige and honour of the DPRK and absolutely guarantees its security and to consolidate its irreversible position, he said, stressing that the WPK and the government of the DPRK will remain unchanged in their determination to permanently ensure the peaceful environment of the state and its absolute security by composing the nuclear forces that the enemy cannot help fearing.

We have made strenuous efforts to build the nuclear shield capable of reliably defending our national security and secured the capability for expanding it to the extent necessary for ensuring the national security environment, he said, adding that the newly-built nuclear submarine will represent an epoch-making crucial change that further assures ourselves and even the enemies of the war deterrent level the DPRK has reached. He clarified the steadfast will and the strategic and tactical policy to steadily press on with the arming of the navy with nuclear weapons.

The Party Central Committee is pleased to see the warship-building field achieving signal production successes, true to the WPK's line of building up the naval forces in the new century, he said, noting that the strategic nuclear attack submarine that would become an important component of the nuclear war deterrent will constitute the greatest and immortal feat performed by the working class and defence scientists and technicians, our driving force, for the times and history.

Saying that the present world is by no means peaceful, he affirmed that such situation and the prospective threats undoubtedly highlight the point that the decision made by the DPRK with regard to its future security is the most just option and the manifestation of its will to safeguard its sovereignty and interests in a responsible manner.

Saying that the nuclear submarine development plan of the ROK, which Washington recently agreed on at the solicitation of Seoul, will worsen the instability in the Korean peninsula region, he stressed that the DPRK regards that as an offensive act severely violating its security and maritime sovereignty and a threat to its security that must be countered.

Given the negative security environment that has come as present reality, it is an urgent task and indispensable option to further accelerate the radical development of the modernization and nuclear weaponization of the naval forces of the DPRK, he said.

Attack destroyers and nuclear submarines that are being built these days will greatly boost the combat capabilities of our fleets and contribute to defending the strategic sovereignty and security of our country, he said, adding that the DPRK will build up the navy and its strategic components in a constant and diverse way, gradually increase and expand the speed and scale of the building of various surface and underwater warships and constantly equip them with different offensive weapon systems.

Noting that the WPK and the DPRK government will stay definitely unchanged in their national security policy and principle of deterring the enemy, he said it is needed to make the enemy undoubtedly realize that they will be surely forced to pay a dear price when they violate the security of the DPRK's strategic sovereignty and that they will face a merciless retaliatory attack if they try to select a military option. The DPRK will continue to show such capabilities and this is just the responsible exercise of the true nuclear war deterrent and a reliable shield for defending sovereignty, he added.

That day, he learned in detail about the ongoing research on the new secret underwater weapons under development and clarified a strategic plan for reorganizing the naval forces and establishing new units.