North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said the country's navy would become "a component of the state nuclear deterrence" as he visited the service's command, state-run media said Tuesday.
In a speech delivered Sunday commemorating Navy Day, which fell on the following day, Kim denounced the leaders of Japan, the United States and South Korea as "gang bosses" and stressed the need for the navy to "get prepared to break the enemy's will for war," the official Korean Central News Agency reported.
Earlier this month, the leaders of the three countries agreed to conduct joint military exercises regularly, and on Tuesday their navies staged joint missile defense drills in international waters off South Korea's southern Jeju Island to improve their ability to detect and track targets, and share information in the event of provocation by Pyongyang, South Korea's military said.