North Korea’s Kim Jong-un says he has lawful right to destroy South

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said he has the legal right to annihilate South Korea, in his latest move to threaten his neighbour after starting the year by eliminating the concept of peaceful unification from his state’s national policy.

Kim said in a visit to the Ministry of Defence to celebrate the anniversary of the founding of the army that the “puppets” of South Korea had rebuffed Pyongyang’s efforts for cooperation and were bent on absorbing its neighbour, the official Korean Central News Agency reported Friday.

Therefore, it was correct to label South Korea as the “primary enemy”, and based on that legality, “it can be attacked and destroyed at any time,” KCNA quoted him as saying.

Kim’s “respected daughter” joined him on the visit, it said. While North Korea’s regime operates on the whims of Kim, laws provide a formal basis for the state’s operations.

A day earlier, KCNA said North Korea’s parliament abolished laws for economic cooperation with South Korea, driving a wedge deeper between the neighbours.

Since the start of the year, Kim’s regime has ratcheted up a pressure campaign against South Korea with moves that have included cruise missile tests, threatening language toward Seoul and tearing down a monument in Pyongyang that symbolised the hopes of unification.

The government of South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol said it believes North Korea will be trying to raise its profile ahead of April elections for parliament.

Yoon’s conservative People Power Party, which backs military cooperation with the US and a tough stance toward Pyongyang, is trying to wrest control of the body from the opposition Democratic Party, which favours rapprochement with North Korea.

The North Korean leader has a habit of launching