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North Korean military forces to gain 'strategic assets' amid heightened tensions in peninsula

Iran Press TV

Sunday, 30 November 2025 9:51 AM

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un says the air force will gain "strategic assets" amid the heightened tensions in the region.

Speaking on Friday at an event celebrating the 80th anniversary of the North Korean Air Force, Kim announced that the nation's air force is to be entrusted with "a new important duty," according to state news agency KCNA.

He said the Air Force "will play a role in the exercise of the nuclear war deterrent," adding that the nation's expectations from the Air Force were truly high.

"The Air Force should resolutely repulse and control all sorts of espionage acts and possible military provocations of the enemies," added Kim, who was accompanied by his heiress apparent daughter, Ju Ae, 12.

"The Air Force will be given new strategic military assets and entrusted with a new important duty," Kim said in his speech without further elaborating.

Media reports said North Korea had added unmanned aircraft and mobile missile launchers among others weapons to its military's arsenal.

Pyongyang launched mass production of small, short-range First Person View (FPV) drones and larger medium-range battlefield attack drones, according to the reports.

Meantime, Pyongyang announced earlier that the deployment of "strategic assets" to key targets is a deterrent against the United States' ongoing military build-up on the Korean Peninsula.

It warned that the deployment of strategic nuclear weapons by the United States on the Korean Peninsula "effectively meets" the conditions for Pyongyang to use nuclear deterrents.

Also, Pyongyang has repeatedly denounced the presence of nearly 30,000 American troops in South Korea and Washington's joint drills with its southern neighbor and Japan as provocative exercises that heighten regional tensions.

Washington has maintained military presence in South Korea - deploying nuclear-capable bombers, submarines, and aircraft carriers - since the 1953 armistice that halted, but never formally ended, the Korean War.

It claims the US military presence is a deterrence; however, North Korea and many independent countries see it as a prolonged state of war that has affected every component of the Peninsula's security make-up.