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North Korean missile test (dated March 24, 2022)
Photo: Êú?ÈÆÆÈÄö‰ø°Á§æ / AP
The tone in the nuclear dispute between North Korea and the West is getting shrill.
On Friday, Pyongyang passed a law that its leadership said would make the country "irrevocable" a nuclear power.
Negotiations on a possible denuclearization are thus excluded, it said.
Observers believe these harsh words are a possible preparation for new nuclear tests in the largely isolated country.
It would be the first test of this kind since 2017. Such a step would significantly intensify tensions with the West.
"What is decisive about the new legislation is that it draws an immovable line, so that our nuclear weapons cannot be negotiated," state news agency KCNA quoted from a speech by dictator Kim Jong Un in front of parliament.
According to KCNA, the new legislation also provides that possible attacks on the country's leadership will "automatically" be answered with nuclear strikes.
In his speech, Kim accused the United States of wanting to weaken the country and remove its leadership.
A basic prerequisite for the West for possible talks and urgently needed economic aid is the dismantling of the nuclear arsenal.
Regime fables about »socialist fairytale land«
Only yesterday, Parliament had expressed in flowery words on the plans for the future of the impoverished country.
One wants to transform North Korea into a "beautiful and civilized socialist fairytale country".
"Two new laws will advance the ruling party's efforts to radically transform rural people and landscape design policies, achieve rapid development of socialist rural people... and transform the country into a beautiful and civilized socialist fairytale country," the government reported state news agency KCNA on Thursday, citing a speech by a lawmaker before North Korea's Supreme People's Assembly.
The Korean War ended in 1953 with an armistice rather than a peace treaty.
In principle, the two states are therefore still in a state of war.
The demarcation line dividing the peninsula has also torn many families apart.
Many of those affected are now over 90 years old.
According to the Red Cross, there are around 75,000 people in South Korea who cannot meet their relatives in the north.
jok/Reuters