North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said he has the legal right to annihilate South Korea, in his latest move to threaten his neighbor 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 Defense 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 neighbor, 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.