Pyongyang, March 5 (KCNA) — 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, inspected the Destroyer Choe Hyon on March 3 and 4 to observe its crew members’ combat and political training and the shakedown for assessing its operational executive capability.

Accompanying him were Jo Chun Ryong, secretary of the WPK Central Committee, Kim Jong Sik, first vice department director of the WPK Central Committee, Senior Vice Admiral Pak Kwang Sop, commander of the Navy of the Korean People’s Army, and officials in the warship-building sector.

The respected Comrade Kim Jong Un was greeted by the leading officials of the Nampho Shipyard on the spot on March 3.

He mounted the Destroyer Choe Hyon to inspect the situation of the sailors’ operation of the destroyer and the process of the shakedown for assessing the destroyer’s performance and operational executive capabilities.

He praised the sailors of the destroyer for having achieved successes in the new year combat and political drill for perfectly acquiring the military and technological qualifications, the level of which was set by the Party Central Committee for the operation of the new-type destroyer.

On the destroyer he acquainted himself with the sailors’ preparedness for controlling warship and handling various weapon systems.

A shakedown cruise took place in his presence that day to estimate the maneuverability of the destroyer.

The crew members of the destroyer were filled with high confidence of carrying out the shakedown under his supervision.

Kim Jong Un highly appreciated that the maneuverability of the warship meets the requirements of operational performance and the warship control system is excellent.

Expressing satisfaction over the smooth tests of all systems of the destroyer for its commissioning for operations, he said:

“The tests of operational efficiency of the new-type destroyer, a new symbol of sea defence capability of our state, are going on smoothly as planned.

This is an appraisal, from another point of view, of the advantages of the design of the vessel.

Every year during the new five-year plan period we must build two surface warships of this class or of a higher class, and correctly implement the gigantic plan of increasing the fighting strength of surface warships.

Ensuring the concentrated and sustained character of the capability of the national defence economy is a major guarantee for the implementation of this plan.

We have sufficient potentials, i.e., powerful researchers group and shipbuilding industry.

Our Navy’s forces for attacking from under and above water will grow rapidly.

The arming of the Navy with nuclear weapons is making satisfactory progress.

All these successes constitute a radical change in defending our maritime sovereignty, something that we have not achieved for half a century.

Our Navy will have a powerful offensive capability, which is, in effect, a capability for defending ourselves.

If any forces are apprehensive about our efforts to build up our defence capabilities, this means that they are precisely our enemy.

I will have a strongest navy built.

As I have stressed before, I am sure that the course of implementing the national defence development plan for the coming five years will be a course of transforming once again the structure of our armed forces; we will build reliable defence capability.

We will guarantee the defence of national sovereignty, not in spoken or written words, but through capability for real actions and through practice.”

Reiterating the goals to be attained by the warship-building industry in the period for implementing the five-year plan, he specified the state-sponsored measures to be taken to modernize the Navy and a series of tasks such as intensified cooperation between the Second Economy Commission and the national defence scientific research group.

He oversaw a sea-to-surface strategic cruise missile test launch conducted on the warship on March 4.

He said that the test was an important core element in estimating the operational capabilities of the warship.

The test launch was successfully carried out.

He expressed great satisfaction at the sailors’ very good readiness for a strategic attack.

He said that such a demonstration of great power is not only a clear expression of the will to defend the national sovereignty based on firm self-confidence but also a responsible exercise of its war deterrent.

That day he inspected the third Choe Hyon-class destroyer under construction at the shipyard.

He highly praised and encouraged the workers of the shipyard, renowned for its tradition and might of self-reliance as a reliable large-scale warship-building base of the country, and the technicians and officials in the warship-building sector, who are striving with high morale to successfully build another Choe Hyon-class destroyer until the birthday of the WPK this year, when its historic Congress was held, by further enhancing the spirit they displayed in making a breakthrough in implementing the historic cause of rapidly turning the country into a maritime power of the 21st century through the building of the first new-generation multi-purpose destroyer.

Saying that the officials and workers in the warship-building sector should faithfully uphold the Party’s line of building a military power with the completion of powerful new-type warships, he called for making strenuous progress of uninterrupted innovations and consecutive leaps forward to accelerate the dramatic transformation of the Navy.

His inspection of the destroyer and the shipyard served as a significant occasion for signaling that the strategic plan of the Party Central Committee, aimed at gradual and qualitative strengthening of the naval forces that will shoulder the crucial mission in carrying out the national defense strategy and exercising the war deterrent, has begun demonstrating its might through actual development.