(LEAD) N. Korea apparently aims to use its animosity against S. Korea to boost military capability: Seoul

▲ This photo, carried by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency on Dec. 31, 2023, shows the North's leader Kim Jong-un attending the plenary meeting of the Central Committee of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea, as he wrapped up the five-day meeting the previous day. (For Use Only in the Republic of Korea. No Redistribution) (Yonhap)

(LEAD) S Korea-NK party meeting

(LEAD) N. Korea apparently aims to use its animosity against S. Korea to boost military capability: Seoul

(ATTN: UPDATES with more details in paras 2, 6-8, 10)

SEOUL, Jan. 2 (Yonhap) -- North Korea has voiced its hostile stance against South Korea on a stronger note during a year-end key party meeting in a bid to use it as an excuse to bolster its military capability and intensify internal solidarity, Seoul's unification ministry said Tuesday.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un defined inter-Korean ties as relations "between two states hostile to each other" and vowed to "overwhelmingly" bolster war readiness against the United States, as he wrapped up the five-day plenary meeting of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea on Saturday.

Kim also called for a "great event to suppress the whole territory" of South Korea by mobilizing all physical means and nuclear force, and said he will no longer consider the South as a counterpart for reconciliation and unification.

Assessing the outcome of the party meeting, the ministry said North Korea appears to have shown "jitters" in attaining its 2014 policy goals as it highlighted tensions with Seoul and Washington in order to further elicit people's loyalty to the regime.

"By using a stronger term than (an expression used in 2022), North Korea emphasized its animosity against us in a bid to strengthen its military capabilities and deepen internal solidarity," a ministry official told reporters on condition of anonymity.

He said North Korea is expected to stage any form of provocations in a bid to fulfill Kim's order to "suppress" South Korea's entire territory.

The defense ministry made a similar assessment that Kim's hostile rhetoric appears to be aimed at "solidifying the internal unity and causing conflicts among South Koreans."

"We strongly condemn North Korea's declaration to persist with provocative acts prohibited by the U.N. Security Council," ministry spokesperson Jeon Ha-kyu said in a regular press briefing, referring to North Korea's advancements in nuclear and missile capabilities, along with planned launches of additional spy satellites.

At a year-end party meeting in 2022, Kim called South Korea an "undoubted enemy" and called for an "exponential" increase in the country's nuclear arsenal.

At last week's party meeting, North Korea said it aims to launch three more military spy satellites, boost its nuclear arsenal and produce unmanned combat equipment, such as attack drones, in 2024. He also ordered the dismantling of agencies in charge of inter-Korean affairs.

South Korea's spy agency recently said North Korea is expected to stage provocative acts early this year ahead of the South's parliamentary elections in April and the U.S. presidential election in November.

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