우재연
| 2026-09-18 11:56:18
SEOUL, Sept. 18 (Yonhap) -- North Korea's Vice Defense Minister Kim Kang-il has reaffirmed his country's nuclear program at a defense forum in China, calling it "self-defensive," Pyongyang's state media reported Friday.
Kim made the remarks Thursday in his address at the 13th Beijing Xiangshan Forum, which was held in China from Tuesday to Thursday, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.
Kim criticized the United States' joint military exercises with its allies, claiming that the drills based on the assumption of nuclear weapons use were carried out publicly near the Korean Peninsula.
Insisting that such drills justified North Korea's own nuclear program, he said the North will "ceaselessly expand and strengthen our self-defensive nuclear war deterrent," while describing the country's nuclear status as at "the point of no return."
Kim also urged "enemy states" to abandon what he called their "unrealistic denuclearization delusion."
On the sidelines of the forum, he met with his Chinese counterpart to discuss deepening "strategic communication" and expanding military cooperation and development, the KCNA reported.
Launched in 2006 by the China Association for Military Science, the forum is often called China's version of Singapore's Shangri-La Dialogue. This year's edition took place under the theme of "Build Consensus on Stability, Advance Security Governance Together."
North Korea first joined the forum in 2018 and returned the following year, when Kim Hyong-ryong, then vice minister of the Ministry of the People's Armed Forces, led the delegation.
In the two most recent editions, military attaches from the North Korean Embassy in China reportedly attended instead amid souring bilateral relations.
North Korea's decision to send its vice defense minister to this year's forum followed a June summit in Pyongyang, where North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and Chinese President Xi Jinping vowed to strengthen high-level exchanges.
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