Supreme leader of North Korea Kim Jong Un spoke at a key meeting of the rogue nation's ruling party, underscoring his desire to align with foreign nations against U.S. interests in the region.
Speaking from the stage and backed by large, crimson displays bearing the Workers' Party of Korea emblem, Kim offered the "direction of struggle" for the upcoming year.
"He set forth the militant tasks for the People's Army and the munitions industry, nuclear weapons and civil defense sectors to further accelerate the war preparations, on the basis of in-depth analysis of the grave political and military situation in the Korean peninsula which reached [the] extreme due to the anti-DPRK confrontation moves of the US and its vassal forces unprecedented in history.," Korean Central News Agency reported.
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The abbreviation "DPRK" stands for the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea," the country's official name.
The KCNA report continued, "[Kim] clarified the independent principle of the WPK to expand and develop the relations of strategic cooperation with the anti-imperialist independent countries and dynamically wage the anti-imperialist joint action and struggle on an international scale under the rapidly changing world geo-political situation and indicated the orientation of the external affairs and the work towards the south."
KCNA is a North Korean state media outlet, owned, operated and published by the ruling authoritarian government.
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North Korea has worked extensively in the past year to increase cooperation with its regional allies Russia and the People's Republic of China.
Kim has been in communication with both Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin – to meet the latter face to face, the supreme leader made a rare trip out of the country by train.
The Central Committee of the North Korean Workers' Party gathered in Pyongyang on Tuesday for the multi-day plenary meeting to review policies leading into the new year.
Kim already spoke at the party meeting in Pyongyang, where he called 2023 a "year of great turn and great change" and a "year of great importance."
He said Tuesday that the last year in North Korea has achieved "eye-opening victories and events achieved in all fields for socialist construction and the strengthening of the national power."
While the supreme leader of North Korea has historically been expected to deliver a New Year's Day speech to the people, Kim has delivered the yearly recap speech at Workers' Party meetings since 2020.
