North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has asserted for the first time that Pyongyang can field nuclear-tipped missiles, state media reported Wednesday. A North Korean newspaper printed photographs of him meeting staff at a missile facility with a spherical silver object on a stand that appeared to be a mock-up nuclear warhead.

Kim told the officials that the country's warheads have been shrunk in size and "standardized" for missile delivery. "This can be called true nuclear deterrent," he said, in a translation provided by South Korea's Yonhap news agency.

The claim comes days after the United Nations Security Council imposed a new embargo on North Korea — on things ranging from jet fuel to jet skis — and in the week 317,000 U.S. and South Korean troops began more than a month of exercises gaming North Korean threats.