Kim Jong Un insisted this week that North Korea will not be pressured into surrendering its nuclear weapons as he signed off on a new law requiring the military to “automatically” launch nuclear strikes when faced with an attack. “The purpose of the United States is not only to remove our nuclear might itself, but eventually forcing us to surrender or weaken our rights to self-defense through giving up our nukes, so that they could collapse our government at any time,” Kim claimed in his speech, according to the Korean Central News Agency. “Let them sanction us for 100 days, 1,000 days, 10 years or 100 years,” he added. “We will never give up our rights to self-defense that preserves our country’s existence and the safety of our people just to temporarily ease the difficulties we are experiencing now.” Officials in the U.S. and South Korea believe Kim may soon launch a test of the country’s nuclear weapons for the first time in five years, as he hopes the U.S. will consider North Korea a nuclear power.
