North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has called on company commanders of the Korean People’s Army to step up military training and ensure their units are fully prepared for war. He described this as the commanders’ primary revolutionary task. The statement was made during a photo session with participants at the third meeting of KPA company commanders, according to The Korea Times.
Briefly about the main points
- Commanders of the KNA companies have been instructed to improve their units’ combat readiness.
- Kim Jong-un called for more intensive and higher-quality military exercises.
- The leadership of commanders should be assessed on the basis of specific results.
- Kim insisted that the army should remain a force of the party and its ideology.
- The statement was made following threats made by Kim Yo-jong against South Korea.
Commanders have been required to demonstrate their leadership through results
Kim Jong-un He stated that commanders must radically increase the intensity and quality of military exercises. Loyalty to the state and leadership qualities, he said, must be demonstrated by concrete results in the training of personnel.
He called for units to be transformed into detachments capable of holding their own against «hundreds of enemies». Such formations, as required the leader of the DPRK, must be based on revolutionary faith, a patriotic spirit, heroic fortitude and combat effectiveness.
The meeting was attended by the Deputy Chairman of the Central Military Commission of the Workers’ Party of Korea Park Jeong-cheong, Minister of Defence Kim Seong-gi and the Chief of the General Staff Ri Yeon-gil.
The DPRK army is being urged to maintain its party and ideological character
Separately Kim Jong-un He instructed the commanders to steadfastly promote the character of the army as the Party’s army, an army of ideology and its core principles. He described the future of building a strong army as «extremely promising», attributing this to the efforts of the military personnel.
In a previous statement, he had tasked commanders with creating «the strongest army» and accelerating a military revolution modelled on the Korean example by training the strongest companies. Kim also spoke of a «new era of building up the armed forces».
The new demands were made following Kim Yo-jong’s statements regarding South Korea
A few days before Kim Jong-un’s speech, his younger sister Kim Yo-jong announced a «psychological war» against South Korea. She stated that Pyongyang would show no mercy if the DPRK’s territorial security or its military personnel were harmed.
