North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has told army company leaders that their main task is to get their units fully ready for war, state media reported on Wednesday. North Korea combat readiness, in Kim’s words, depends on hard and intensive training, and company leaders must prove their loyalty through results in their units.
Kim made the remarks on Tuesday during a photo session with participants in the third meeting of Company Leaders of the Korean People’s Army, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said. The meeting itself took place in Pyongyang on October 22 and 23, with Kim presiding.
North Korea combat readiness: what Kim said
“The primary revolutionary task of the company leaders is to round off the combat preparations of their units for getting fully ready for fighting a war and the way for its implementation is to bring about a radical improvement in the strenuous and intensive training,” Kim was quoted as saying by KCNA.
He told the commanders to turn their companies into “a-match-for-a-hundred ranks” with firm faith, patriotic spirit and fighting efficiency. Pak Jong-chon, vice chairman of the Central Military Commission of the Workers’ Party of Korea, Defence Minister Kim Song-gi and Chief of the General Staff Ri Yong-gil were with him at the photo session, Yonhap reported.
Kim also told the meeting that the future of building a strong army looked bright because of the company commanders. He had earlier urged them to build the strongest army and to speed up what he called a Korean-style military revolution by training the strongest companies.
Why the timing matters
The remarks come at a tense moment on the Korean Peninsula. An explosion last month inside the Demilitarised Zone, which separates North and South Korea, wounded three South Korean soldiers. Seoul blamed Pyongyang for the incident but said the two sides should restart military communication to ease tension.
Pyongyang rejected the accusations and has yet to answer the offer of talks. Both sides have since written to the United Nations Security Council setting out their own accounts of the September 21 incident, Anadolu Agency reported.
The company leaders’ meeting was also the first gathering of the North’s entire army since the party’s ninth congress in February, according to KCNA. That detail matters because company commanders sit at the base of the army: they lead the basic combat units and run the daily life of soldiers. A message aimed at them is a message aimed at the whole force.
What happens next
Three things will show whether this is routine rhetoric or a sharper signal. The first is whether Pyongyang answers Seoul’s offer of military talks. The second is whether KCNA follows up with further statements on training or readiness in the coming days. The third is how the Security Council handles the competing letters from the two Koreas over the September blast.
For now, the public record is narrow: a reported speech, a photo session, and a disputed border incident. None of it, on its own, shows a change in North Korea’s military posture. But the language is unusually direct, and it comes while the two Koreas are not talking to each other through military channels.
Frequently asked questions
What did Kim Jong Un say?
He said the main task of company leaders is to complete their units’ combat preparations so they are fully ready for war, with intensive training as the way to do it.
When did he make the remarks?
He made them on Tuesday, October 27, at a photo session with participants in the third meeting of Company Leaders of the Korean People’s Army. KCNA reported them on Wednesday, October 28.
What caused the latest tension on the peninsula?
An explosion inside the Demilitarised Zone on September 21 wounded three South Korean soldiers. Seoul blamed Pyongyang, which rejected the accusation.
Who attended the meeting with Kim?
Senior officers with him included Pak Jong-chon, Defence Minister Kim Song-gi and Chief of the General Staff Ri Yong-gil.
