North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has vowed to mobilize all means to deal a "death-blow" to the country's enemy without hesitation should it opt for military confrontation with the North, state media said Thursday.
Kim made the remark during his visit to the Kim Jong-il University of Military and Politics on Wednesday, the Korean Central News Agency said, calling the university named after Kim's late father a military training school for core commanding officers.
"He said that now is the time to be more thoroughly prepared for a war than ever before and that the DPRK should be more firmly and perfectly prepared for a war, which should be won without fail, not just for a possible war," the KCNA said, referring to the North by its formal name.
Kim was also quoted as instructing the university to nurture new military talents who are absolutely loyal to the ruling Workers' Party of Korea and are capable of overwhelming the enemy with "ideological, mental, militant, moral and tactical superiority," it added.
The KCNA said Kim inspected lecture rooms as well as dorms and a mess hall at the university and vowed to improve living conditions for students.
Photos released by the state media outlet showed Kim speaking to officials in a room filled with blurred maps and a topographic model that appeared to map major roads in South Korea and central Seoul.
Noting that the KCNA reported on how Kim inspected the living conditions of students and brought "various dishes" for them, an official at South Korea's unification ministry said the visit was likely aimed at shoring up unity of military officials.
"It appears that the focus of the visit is to encourage the military and thus induce loyalty and unity as observed in the March 24 visit to the Ryu Kyong Su Guards 105th Tank Division," the official said.
During the visit to the tank unit credited for being first to enter Seoul during the 1950-53 Korean War, Kim inspected its facilities such as the unit's cafeteria as soldiers had their meal.
North Korea has been dialing up tensions on the Korean Peninsula with weapons tests and harshly worded rhetoric this year after Kim defined inter-Korean ties as relations between "two states hostile to each other" in a year-end meeting.
In January, the North's leader called for revising the country's constitution to define South Korea as its "primary foe" and codify a commitment to subjugate the South Korean territory in the event of war.
Last week, it claimed to have successfully test-fired a new intermediate-range ballistic missile tipped with a hypersonic warhead, saying that all missiles the country has developed are solid-fuel, nuclear capable with warhead control capability. (Yonhap)
