North Korea unveils new 'Kim Jong Un style' 5,000-tonne warship

SEOUL, April 26 — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un attended a ceremony for the launch of a “new multipurpose destroyer,” state media KCNA reported on Saturday.

The 5,000-tonne warship was equipped with the “most powerful weapons” and built “within 400-odd days perfectly with our own strength and technology,” said the ruling Workers’ Party’ secretary Jo Chun Ryong.

Kim, in a speech from the launch reported by KCNA, said the warship would be handed over to the navy and go into service early next year.

The launch took place on Friday at the military shipbuilding dockyard of Nampho, and marked a new era of the “great Kim Jong Un-style fleet building,” KCNA said, quoting Vice-Admiral Pak Kwang Sop.

The ship was graded as the “Choe Hyon-class”, named after anti-Japanese revolutionary fighter Choe Hyon.

Earlier this month, Reuters reported that North Korea’s new class of warships could accommodate dozens of vertical launch cells to carry missiles its military has already developed, citing an analysis of a satellite image.

Kim also said strong pre-emptive attack capabilities were the most “convincing war deterrent” and that the scope of such attacks was unlimited.

He was quoted as saying, “The security environment of our country is very serious right now. ”

Kim also thanked the workers and technicians for building the new destroyer, which was “true to the party’s line of strengthening the naval forces.”

He added that the United States (US) was deploying strategic assets in the Korean Peninsula on a regular basis.

According to Seoul’s Defence Ministry, the B-1B was used alongside fighter jets in a joint military drill between South Korea and the US earlier this month.

B-1B bombers have featured regularly in joint military exercises in recent years. North Korea has long condemned the drills as a rehearsal for war. Seoul says they are purely defensive.

— Reuters