N. Korean leader calls for expanding war deterrence in more 'offensive' way: KCNA

SEOUL, April 11 (Yonhap) -- North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has presided over a key party meeting and called for expanding his country's war deterrence in a more "practical and offensive" manner, state media said Tuesday.

The North discussed "important military issues" at an enlarged meeting of the Central Military Commission of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) Monday, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

Kim raised the need to expand the North's war deterrence "with increasing speed on a more practical and offensive and to effectively apply it as a measure for more strict control and management of the ever-worsening security," on the Korean Peninsula, the KCNA said in an English-language dispatch.

The meeting came amid heightened tension on the peninsula in the wake of the North's weapons tests in protest of joint military exercises by Seoul and Washington. The North has decried such drills as a rehearsal for an invasion against it.

The report also came on the 11th anniversary of Kim taking the post of the first secretary of the WPK.

sooyeon@yna.co.kr
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