SEOUL, Jan 10: North Koreas Kim Jong Un branded South Korea his countrys "principal enemy" and warned he would not hesitate to annihilate it as he toured major weapons factories, state media said Wednesday.
The report follows recent live-fire exercises by Pyongyangs military near the contested maritime border that prompted counter-drills and evacuation orders for residents on two South Korean border islands.
Images in state media showed Kim, in a full-length black leather jacket, standing in front of what analysts said were short-range ballistic missile launchers, purportedly nuclear-capable.
"The historic time has come at last when we should define as a state most hostile toward the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea the entity called the Republic of Korea (South Korea)," Kim was reported as saying by the official Korean Central News Agency.
Kim, urging factory workers to modernise and "produce more weapons", said he had "no intention of avoiding a war" and warned he would have no hesitation in "annihilating" South Korea, KCNA added. —AFP
