BEIJING - North Korea has commissioned a new 5,000-ton destroyer, with leader Kim Jong Un calling for the annual building of two large warships under the five-year national defense development plan through 2030, state-run media said Wednesday.
At a commissioning ceremony held Tuesday in the western port city of Nampho for the multipurpose destroyer Choe Hyon, which was launched in April last year, Kim said the combat capability of the country's navy will "grow to be admirable beyond imagination," the official Korean Central News Agency said.
It was "the weakest of all the services of our armed forces," but "things have changed obviously now," the leader said, adding that it has "clearly become a thing of the past" for the navy to exist only as a force "defending the sea off our land."
A program of equipping the navy with nuclear weapons is "following its planned course unerringly," Kim was quoted by KCNA as saying.
He also said North Korea should annually build two surface ships whose class is higher than the Choe Hyon, including a 10,000-ton cruiser, along with escort ships and special-purpose vessels, and develop and produce underwater weapon systems.
Meanwhile, Kim called for the urgent construction of large and multi-functional naval bases that can accommodate those ships.
Following the Choe Hyon, Pyongyang will soon commission another 5,000-ton destroyer, the Kang Kon, built in the northeastern city of Chongjin, Kim added.
