North Korea’s Kim calls on military to ‘intensify practical actual-war drills’

By Riyaz ul Khaliq

ISTANBUL (AA) - North Korean leader Kim Jong-un had called on the country’s military to “intensify” the “practical actual-war drills ensuring the victory in a war.”

During a visit on Wednesday to a major operational training base in the western area of the Korean People's Army on Wednesday, Kim inspected training facilities and “guided the actual maneuvers of units,” Pyongyang-based state-run KCNA reported on Thursday.

Kim told the Korean soldiers: “To contain the constant threat of the enemies with overwhelming force … and correctly carry out the important mission in contingency, our army should always make more exact demands on itself in keeping with the aspect of changing and developing modern warfare and steadily intensify the actual war drills aimed at rapidly improving its combat capabilities for perfect war preparedness.”

The North Korean leader’s statement came after Pyongyang slammed the ongoing joint military exercise by the US and South Korea in the region.

Kim underscored the need for the units “at all levels of the entire army to dynamically usher in a new heyday of intensifying the war preparations in line with the requirements of the prevailing situation.”

During the inspection, Kim “appreciated the fact that all the elements have been built in a practical way so that various trainings can be conducted in a high intensity under the circumstances like an actual war.”