Pyongyang, April 26 (KCNA) -- The respected Comrade Kim Jong Un made a speech at the ceremony of launching a destroyer of the Navy of the Korean People's Army on April 25.
His speech is as follows:
Dear officials, workers and technicians of the Nampho Shipyard, which is a reliable large-scale warship-building base and is famed for the tradition and strength of self-reliance, and other workers and scientists in the shipbuilding sector,
Dear courageous commanders and sailors of the East Sea and West Sea fleets of the Navy of the Korean People's Army and the cadets of the naval university,
And respected demobilized generals, who are present here today with great pride in having long and wholeheartedly worked at important posts of our Navy,
Comrades,
Moored in front of us now is a giant warship, symbolic of the changed appearance of our Navy.
I cannot suppress my emotions as I see the new-type warship, which is indispensable in building up our capability for stoutly defending our maritime sovereignty and which will represent an important starting point of our journey towards building an advanced maritime power.
I feel infinitely honoured to proclaim the birth of the first warship of a new generation, which the Navy of the heroic KPA will be equipped with.
First, I would like to extend warm thanks to the workers, technicians and officials of the Nampho Shipyard, who have presented immense strength and militant enthusiasm to our Navy by wonderfully building this powerful multi-mission destroyer, true to the line of the Workers' Party of Korea and the government of the Republic on strengthening the naval forces.
I also offer militant encouragement to the scientists, technicians and workers in the shipbuilding sector and the relevant persons, who are working hard for steady creation and development as the main force of the revolution in the warship-building industry in the new era.
My congratulations go to the officers and men of the East Sea Fleet of the Navy of the KPA, who will receive and operate the new-type destroyer, as well as to the commanders and crewmen, who will serve on this warship.
The more I see the imposing appearance of the new-generation multi-mission attack destroyer No. 1, which our proud working class have built by their own efforts and which is mooring on the blue sea of our motherland, the more majestic it looks.
I feel quite moved to picture that this destroyer will navigate the territorial waters of our motherland with our sacred national flag hoisted.
And I feel quite at ease at the thought that our territorial waters will become more peaceful with the help of this destroyer.
The emergence of this destroyer has made a breakthrough in modernizing our naval forces.
To explain the hardware of the destroyer, an ensemble of our self-reliant defence technology, it is equipped not only with anti-air, anti-ship, anti-submarine and anti-ballistic missile capability but also with weapon systems for the most effective ground striking operations, like hypersonic strategic cruise missile, tactical ballistic missile and other means of strike. So it is capable of performing multi-mission surface operations and thus increasing the possibility of direct intervention by the Navy in the ground operations.
This is one of the things of great significance in view of the military theory.
This warship will be handed over to the Navy and launched into operation in early next year after going through the necessary procedures, like the assessment of its performance and capability for conducting operations and the test of operation of its integrated equipment.
We will, of course, build warships of this class next year, too. And we are planning to build in the shortest time possible a cruiser, whose operations capability is greater, as well as escort ships of various classes, and are now examining their master plans at the final stage.
We will execute this plan of building multi-mission destroyers year by year, and these ships will sail for operations in ordinary times in the coastal defensive waters and intermediate waters.
Indeed, I would like to express my emotions again and again.
This year marks the 80th anniversary of our country's liberating itself from imperialist colonial subordination and regaining its national sovereignty. On April 25 in this meaningful year, the birthday of the first revolutionary armed forces of Korea, we have launched a powerful destroyer as an ensemble of our great national power, so this launching ceremony is more significant.
The dawn of the Korean revolution, the establishment of state power which signified that the Korean people achieved their right to independence, and their nearly-a-century-long struggle in defence of the country's sovereignty have been directly associated with the Juche-oriented armed forces, and the people have achieved victory after victory by relying entirely on these forces.
For us, April 25 is the starting point of a bloody armed struggle that began before the establishment of our state power and the founding of our Party and brought about all the momentous events.
This can be described as the birth of our people's first-ever genuine armed forces, and at the same time a demonstration of the resolute stand of the Korean revolutionaries who were determined to fight with a clear purpose and consciousness and carve out their destiny independently.
This was a day when they solemnly expressed their decision to take the road of armed struggle as their volitional and responsible choice, and their will to regain national sovereignty and establish a democratic government with indomitable revolutionary faith and through a death-defying struggle. Such is our generation's renewed understanding of April 25, 1932, a day bearing a more important political meaning than February 8, 1948, the birthday of Korea's first regular armed forces.
This renewed understanding of the historic weight of April 25 reminded us, when we were fixing this significant day as a day of this meaningful ceremony, of a veteran general who had left remarkable imprints in the glorious history of the Juche-oriented revolutionary armed forces.
This state-of-the-art multi-mission destroyer standing in front of us was classified as a Choe Hyon-class vessel, and, as stated just before, this first warship was named Choe Hyon.
General Choe Hyon, a faithful comrade-in-arms of the great leader Comrade Kim Il Sung, is well known to the Korean people. Though his career was not specially associated with sailors, we named the first destroyer of a new generation after him, who lives in our memories as a symbol of bravery and mettle. This is because we hope our sailors' spirit will be impregnated with his soul so that the Navy will achieve victory unprecedented in the annals of its history.
Comrades Kim Chaek, An Kil, Choe Hyon, Kang Kon and all the other commanding officers of guerrilla origin were genuine generals of practical abilities. They loyally supported the great leader and assisted him with unshakable faith and remarkable military qualifications; they performed considerable exploits in liberating our country by organizing armed ranks on the principle of fighting the Japanese independently, in building our state and army in their initial days and in repulsing the allied imperialist forces.
The elite warships, which will serve as new symbols of our state's self-defensive capabilities, should naturally raise as their colours the idea upheld by the first generation of our Juche-oriented revolutionary armed forces. And by faithfully carrying forward their forerunners' courage and indomitable spirit, our sailors should regard it as their absolute mission to fight self-sacrificingly to defend the dignity of their country and the safety of their fellow people.
Other new-type destroyers to be built in the future will be named after the anti-Japanese revolutionary forerunners who distinguished themselves as renowned fighters and performed brilliant feats in the history of army building.
Over the past nearly eight decades the Navy of the Korean People's Army has repelled dangerous attempts at invasion on countless occasions and defended the maritime sovereignty, which is the core of our national sovereignty. The history of our Navy shows that the seas of our country are defended by its sailors' spirit.
During the war and in the subsequent decades our Navy was inferior to the enemy in the number of sailors and the level of armament, but it added eternal glory to the victorious history of the heroic KPA and built barriers of no retreat in the maritime gateways, which had been traditionally used as routes of invasion.
All these exploits cost our sailors precious blood and even lives, which cannot be fully explained in relation to the characteristics of their duty–defending the country's territorial waters that have never been peaceful over the past decades. Such ennobling exploits could not have been achieved if the sailors had not displayed their incomparable spirit for national defence and heroic fighting mettle.
Present here are the former generals of the Navy, who, during their service, displayed their unbounded self-sacrificing spirit and indomitable fortitude without veering even an inch from the sacred course. They thus achieved imperishable exploits to be etched forever in the history of our country's Navy for national defence.
A change of generations has taken place in our honourable Navy's ranks. However, the great spirit of our forerunners should be invariably carried forward, the spirit which they displayed by shedding blood in the rough seas with no marks of borderline in order to defend our Republic's sovereignty. This spirit, along with the indomitable courage and perseverance possessed by the founding generation of our armed forces, should shine brilliantly as our eternal soul of defence.
The destroyer Choe Hyon, which has been launched today, and other latest warships to be built will re-energize the heroic fighting spirit of our sailors and inject infinite vigour into them, thereby encouraging them to perform immortal feats to be admired by the coming generations.
Comrades,
That new-type destroyer will soon navigate the territorial waters of our Republic along the sacred course for defending its sovereignty, reflecting our people's burning desires for peace and prosperity.
For our state, the seas on its east and west are bases that are directly linked with the people's living, and they also belong to key territories over which it exercises its sovereign power.
A powerful navy guarantees peace and development–herein lies a geopolitical peculiarity of our country as a maritime state. Proceeding from this, as has ever been since the founding of our armed forces, it is our most pressing and natural option to quickly develop and incessantly expand the fighting capability of the Navy.
The maritime sovereignty of our state can be defended only by its naval supremacy.
In recent years, after we advanced a revolutionary line of strengthening the Navy, the anchor was raised for warship modernization with the birth of the first entity of this line. With this as a momentum, our Navy has secured its place as a powerful service responsible for one of the country's independent defence capabilities. In particular, as part of the nuclear war deterrent, it can enhance its position in the realm of nuclear use. This has resulted in the Navy growing more adaptable to the use of war deterrent.
Our destroyer will play an important role of firmly defending our maritime sovereignty and national interests in the territorial waters of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
Now our Navy has taken the first step of the times towards practical growth by leaps and bounds.
What we experience at this moment is extremely impressive as we are surely proud that we have at last kindled the initial spark of the new era's revolution in strengthening the Navy, as we have already declared.
Research, development and production of all modern equipment of the destroyer were a costly and hard challenge. But its overall armament system is based on the solid foundations of our self-supporting defence industry. So, we have a substantial guarantee for the effectiveness of its equipment operation, not to mention its military and economic significance.
This destroyer is perfect as planned, in all aspects ranging from designing and hull construction to on-board weapon systems. Seeing this entity, we can proudly say that a radical change has taken place in warship building.
Actually, this is a monumental product of the revolutionary industry that showcases the might of our defence science and technology and the inexhaustible creativity of our intelligent and loyal working class.
The workers, technicians and officials of the Nampho Shipyard, by dint of strenuous exertion, utmost sincerity and irreproachable work style, have proved the veracity of, and the inevitability of victory in, the revolution in the warship-building industry as decided upon by our Party.
As an authoritative shipbuilding base with a history spanning nearly eight decades, the shipyard has built numerous vessels of varying sizes and kinds. Its shipbuilding techniques are admirable, and what impresses me more is the heroic mettle of its workers, who I am sure must have spent hundreds of days and nights working strenuously to complete their tasks unconditionally and as scheduled, in support of the Party's line of effecting a revolution in the warship-building industry.
On behalf of the DPRK government and all the people, particularly the officers and men of our Navy who are more excited than anybody else at this moment, I would like to express my greatest thanks and extend my warmest greetings once again to the workers, technicians and officials of the Nampho Shipyard for having wonderfully built the first destroyer of a new generation.
Comrades,
The present security environment for our state is very serious and the situation demands that we effect a drastic and rapid change in the existing military theories and practices and expand our nuclear armaments radically.
The security environment around the DPRK is as unpredictable as the changeable weather in the sea.
It is highly volatile, its tenseness and instability already having gone well beyond the danger limit.
The armies of the United States and its vassal countries, in disregard of the DPRK's concern for security, are aggravating the situation by engaging in provocative manoeuvres on a regular basis.
Recently, we have witnessed more of their moves growing dangerous.
The United States is bringing strategic strike means into the Korean peninsula at a level of constant deployment.
Worse still, the themes of its recent various military drills unambiguously reveal their aggressive character, casting off the cloak of being annual and defensive.
As our government commented some time ago, in 2024 the enemies set a new record by staging anti-DPRK war drills at unprecedented levels throughout the year, and this year, too, they are radically expanding their political and military provocations against us.
They have taken practical measures for action, openly revealing their intention to remain most hostile and confrontational to the DPRK, and become ever more undisguised in renewing all their past records.
Most recently, the US military opened to the public that last year it drew up a new wartime operations plan in collusion with the ROK army.
In his written answer to a hearing of the Armed Services Committee of the US House of Representatives, the commander of US forces in the ROK wrote that in 2024 the US and ROK military signed a new joint wartime operations plan, which had been completed over the past several years, and practically verified the plan through various allied joint military rehearsals.
It is no secret that during the joint military rehearsal in March last the US and the ROK applied OP-PLAN 2022 to jointly operate the nuclear forces of the US and the conventional forces of the ROK and conduct a drill of aggressive nature simulating nuclear strike against the DPRK, and we have already given a serious warning to the enemy states for their provocative signals.
The fact that the man in command of the US-ROK allied forces made public the existence of a new operations plan for unleashing a nuclear war on the Korean peninsula is an outspoken expression of a frenzy of confrontation against the DPRK and an open escalation of the clash-provoking situation.
In the 1990s, OP-PLAN 5027 of the US and the ROK simulating an all-out war against us was opened to the public only to create a touch-and-go situation on the Korean peninsula, and the political and military situation in and around the Korean peninsula was brought to the worst stage for years after OP-PLAN 5015, which additionally included a preemptive strike strategy, was mapped out in 2015. Such facts clearly show the consequences to be entailed by the new wartime operations plan of the US on the security environment of the region.
The new nuclear war plan of the US and the ROK is an expression of their clearest will for fighting a war against the DPRK and poses a direct threat to the peace and security in the region and the rest of the world.
The mastermind behind the escalating tension on the Korean peninsula is none other than the US and its vassal allies that have become more daring in their military manoeuvrings for transplanting NATO's infrastructure in the region and raising the level of war preparedness.
The project of the US and the ROK to make preparations for translating a nuclear war into reality has reached the gravest stage. This situation and its development prospect show us more clearly what we must attach importance to and what we must do.
We will surely cope with such a geopolitical crisis and developments, and take countermeasures.
As for our nuclear policy which has been officially enshrined in the basic law of the DPRK, it was adopted in correct reflection of the state's apprehension about its security exposed to the existing and future threats, and the present reality highlights the validity, justness and necessity of the line of building up our nuclear forces.
Most recently, I saw to it that our intention was made public through our external news service.
If the US keeps renewing its records in demonstrating its military muscles, we are also compelled to break the records of exercising the strategic deterrent.
This is a legitimate counteraction.
The enemies are well-advised to refrain from trying to test our will to fully exercise our right to mobilize without hesitation all the means in our hands for the purpose of defending the sovereignty and security interests of the state.
We will continue to make steady efforts, full of redoubled self-confidence, to further round off the nuclear defence posture based on the strong counterattack capability everywhere in the sky, on the land and on the sea and, by dint of overwhelming strength, thoroughly deter various military activities of the enemies that constantly deploy huge strategic assets, posing serious threats to the sovereignty and interests of our state.
Today's launch of this destroyer is only the start of the project for modernizing our naval forces. However, it is a perfect demonstration of our grand ambition to build up the fighting capability of our Navy in keeping with the priority requirement for the state's security and the global trend in developing the naval forces.
Now is not an era of merely having a dream, but that of just translating the dream into reality.
It is no use dreaming an idle dream for hundreds, nay thousands of days; it is no better than dreaming no such dream.
What we are planning in the effort to strengthen the naval forces is to put the latest-type warships, capable of satisfying all the demands of national defence strategies, into commission at the earliest possible date with crucial importance given to the radical growth of the warship-building industry, and thus develop the Navy of our Republic into a modern service superior not only in the political and ideological aspects but also in the military and technical aspects.
Building multi-mission destroyers can be called a key to attaining this goal.
Even the enemies, who boast about their supremacy in marine operations and warships, cannot ignore such warships.
We will further accelerate the work of strengthening the surface and underwater forces, and continuously exert ourselves to equip the warships with new-generation hi-tech means and complex offensive and defensive systems and to improve and reinforce the coastal infrastructure.
Obtaining operational capabilities on the oceans is the most reliable means for controlling positively and safely the military threats pregnant with the use of nukes on the Korean peninsula and for containing and blocking the enemy's schemes to dispatch its additional overseas troops to the peninsula in case of emergency.
We are now planning to build a fleet for ocean operations that have long been around as a byword for the imperialists' aggression.
This is a demand put forward by the present reality facing us.
Our enemies that have formed the most reactionary military bloc and been sailing around the Korean peninsula are all maritime states; and the bridgeheads for their overseas aggression, the assembly points of their forces and their logistics bases are also located on the oceans and their coastal waters.
The stark reality, in which the oceans are turning into the first battlefield, clearly teaches us what the reliable policy is to defend our national sovereignty and peace.
From the point of view of strength, the strength that can make aggression is directly proportional to the strength that can check aggression.
The term that refers to the level of the most reliable war deterrent is, in a word, a super-powerful capability for preemptive strike.
The forces that are capable of committing aggression and the forces that are actually committing it can be overwhelmed and repulsed only by the forces that are on an equal footing in terms of strength.
The defence line and policies of our state regard it as their mission to safeguard the national sovereignty, territorial integrity and security interests, but, if an unavoidable, necessary situation presents itself for this mission, we will never hesitate to choose the preemptive employment of the most powerful military muscles.
The range of employment of this preemptive striking capability is not limited to any place or to any line.
That is why our Navy can never limit its operations to our territorial waters to safeguard the national sovereignty and interests, but must stretch its fighting capability to the oceans.
This is the best option for the defence of the territorial integrity and complete peace of our state and a fair and square exercise of the right to self-defence.
No more explanation is needed about our maritime strategy to build up the capability for launching into any waters in the world so as to check on our own initiative the aggression by the enemy states and mount a preemptive or ultimate retaliatory attack on them.
As a warship equipped with such capability, Choe Hyon, to be launched today, is an epitome that gives a glimpse into the future of our naval forces.
We can say that the building of this new-type destroyer has made a breakthrough for the historic sacred cause of rapidly raising our country to the status of a maritime power in the 21st century.
Today's ceremony of launching a new-type destroyer will serve as a signal flare for strengthening the Navy of the DPRK.
And the second signal flare will be just the building of a nuclear-powered submarine.
Comrades,
At present developing the shipbuilding industry has risen as a vital task for strengthening the naval forces and a main strategic task for safeguarding the national sovereignty.
Though it is a road new to us, we have a correct goal and methods and the strength with which to follow it.
Policies have been set forth to accelerate the qualitative, quantitative and technical transformations and signally improve the operational capabilities in building warships, and long-term plans for developing the industry of building various warships and grand plans for building warships have already been approved.
In the course of this, our warship-building industry is taking on the appearance of a modern industry, and has accumulated the self-confidence and experience for building any types of advanced warships with its own efforts and technology.
This makes stronger our will for the rejuvenation of warship-building industry and the building of a maritime power.
I believe that the officials and workers of the Nampho Shipyard who, with the building of this new wonderful destroyer, have now stood in the vanguard of the struggle to develop the warship-building industry and build up the Juche-oriented naval forces of the country, will turn out as one under the uplifted banner of realizing modernization of the shipbuilding industry and effect another revolution in warship building.
I expect your vigorous and proactive struggle which surpasses all the efforts you have made until now.
Leading officials of the Party and the state, as well as senior officials of various sectors, should also fulfil their important mission and tasks, entrusted by the era of revolution in the warship-building industry, through active participation and unstinted contribution.
Comrades,
Witnessing this great reality that helps us draw a full picture of our shipbuilding industry's potentials and development prospect, I feel assured and proud.
Now everyone feels dignified and pleased with the strengthening of our Navy, and is offering congratulations on it.
This must be a high appreciation of the great exploits the Navy has performed for the country and its devotion and reliability displayed in the struggle to defend our national sovereignty and interests, and an expression of their earnest desire for the growth and development of our Navy, which will make a rapid rise to the status of a world-class service.
There is and there must be no limit to the rapid growth of the national defence capability and to our ideals which we are desirous of and are striving to achieve.
Our history of Navy building, which the world witnesses with a new eye, has set sail now and will make vigorous advance. In this advance, we will not rest even a minute.
Dear officers and men of the Navy,
Let us pay respect to the destroyer Choe Hyon, which will be famed as an invincible warship for its association with the peerless heroism and indomitable spirit of the dauntless anti-Japanese war general.
His soul and banner will illuminate the sea route of our sailors and help them always record victory in their ship's log.
I wish the officers and men of the Navy success and glory.
Glory to our heroic naval forces!
Long live our great state, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea! -0-
www.kcna.kp (2025.04.26.)
