North Korea installs artillery pieces capable of reaching Seoul (and launches its destroyer)

The new North Korean constitution, approved after a review ordered by Kim Jong-un, abandoned previous commitments to peaceful reunification with South Korea. The country’s supreme leader does not want to leave any doubts: Seoul is his country’s permanent and most hostile enemy.

Pyongyang will install new security systems later this year long range artillerycapable of reaching Seoul, the capital region of rival South Korea, and commissioning their first destroyer in the coming weeks.

The announcement comes just days after South Korea declared that North Korea’s new constitution eliminates all references to Korean reunificationin line with the leader’s commitments Kim Jong-un to break ties with Seoul and establish a two-state system on the Korean Peninsula.

On Wednesday, Kim visited a weapons factory to inspect the production of 155mm self-propelled howitzersintended to be installed in an artillery unit in the southern border area later this year, reported KCNA, the official agency of the North Korean regime.

According to the agency, which cites Kim, the firing range of this large-caliber rifled cannon is more than 60 kilometers. The North Korean leader claims that “such a rapid extension of firing range and a notable improvement in strike capability will provide a big change and advantage in our army’s ground operations,” according to KCNA.

Kim further mentioned that various operational and tactical missile systemsas well as powerful multiple launch rocket systems, are also planned to be installed along the border.

Os North Korea’s artillery systems attract less attention international than its ballistic missiles, whose launches are prohibited by United Nations Security Council resolutions, notes .

Still, the country already has numerous artillery pieces near the border with South Korea, which represent a serious threat to Seoul, the South Korean capital, with 10 million inhabitants, located about 40 to 50 kilometers from the border.

On Thursday, Kim boarded the contratorpedeiro Choe Hyon to assess its maneuverability off the western coast of North Korea, says KCNA.

A second destroyer of this class was considered by Kim Jong-un as a “unforgivable criminal act” and which led to the arrest of two leaders and the chief engineer of the shipyard where it was being built.

According to the same agency, Kim ordered authorities to hand over the ship to the Navy in mid-June, as scheduled, after being satisfied with the good performance of all tests carried out as part of the entry into operational service of the destroyer.

The photographs released by KCNA also showed Kim Ju-yeahthe teenage daughter and Appointed as successor to North Korean leaderaboard the destroyer, in one of his most recent public appearances alongside his father.

In one of the images, the young woman appears behind her father as he addresses Navy sailors; in another, father and daughter appear having a meal with the crew on board the ship.

The destroyer, presented with great fanfare last yearis North Korea’s largest and most advanced warship.

On Wednesday, the Seoul government denounced that the new North Korean constitution abandoned previous reunification commitments peaceful with South Korea and redefined its territory exclusively as the northern half of the Korean Peninsula.

The changes reflect the Kim’s increasingly uncompromising stance in relation to South Korea, which declared itself to be the permanent and most hostile enemy of his country, in a context in which diplomacy is blocked and tensions are intensifying around its nuclear ambitions.

In January 2024, Kim ordered the rewriting of the constitution to eliminate the idea of ​​a shared state with South Korea, a step that represents a break with the dream long cherished by his predecessors to achieve peacefully a unified Korea, on North’s terms.

Kim’s vilification of the South has been a serious setback for the new Seoul liberal governmentwhich aims to reestablish relations with the North, and which has taken preventive measures to relieve tensionincluding the suspension of propaganda broadcasts along the border.