SEOUL (Reuters) -North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said strengthening the special operation forces and specialised snipers was important in building up armed forces, speaking during his visit to a special operation training base, state media KCNA reported on Thursday.
“It is an important task for building up our armed forces to drastically strengthen the special operations forces and specialized sniper forces in the future,” Kim was quoted as saying. Kim also examined new types of sniper rifles, KCNA said.
His visit to a military training camp came after U.S. President Donald Trump and South Korea President Lee Jae Myung met for a summit this week and talked about Trump’s good relationship with Kim and the potential of arranging another meeting between the two.
The United States and South Korea wrapped up joint annual military drills on Thursday, conducting combined special operation training including “rehearsals for counterweapons of mass destruction missions,” U.S. Forces in Korea said in a statement on Thursday.
Some parts of the exercises, which North Korea traditionally criticises as prelude to a war, have been delayed to next month.
A South Korean government official has said the delays in parts of the drills were aimed at easing tensions with North Korea.
The South Korean leader Lee has been offering peace overtures to Pyongyang since he took office in June, but North Korea has so far rebuffed his calls for dialogue and criticised his moves as deceptive.
After the summit with Trump, Lee said the two countries would work together on the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, conceding that sanctions against a “poor but ferocious neighbour” had failed to deter North Korea from its weapons programs.
North Korean state media called Lee a “hypocrite” with “denuclearization paranoia” and said the country would never give up nuclear weapons.
At the special operations training base, Kim checked the accuracy of the shooting on targets being help up camouflaged snipers, photographs from state media showed.
(Reporting by Ju-min Park; Editing by Leslie Adler, Ed Davies)
