News - Middle East: North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has attended a ceremony marking the delivery of 250 nuclear-capable missile launchers to frontline units.

Kim said at the ceremony on Sunday that the new launchers would give his frontline units “overwhelming” firepower over South Korea and make the operation of tactical nuclear weapons more practical and efficient.

Kim also called for his country to brace for a prolonged confrontation with the United States, stressing a ceaseless advancement of the country's military nuclear program to counter US threats, state media said Monday.

In his speech, Kim justified Pyongyang's military development programs as a counter to the “increasingly savage” military cooperation between the United States and its regional allies, which he claimed are now showing the characteristics of a “nuclear-based military bloc.”

“It would be our choice to either pursue dialogue or confrontation, but our lesson and conclusion from the past 30 years … is that confrontation is what we should be prepared more thoroughly for,” said Kim.

“The United States we are facing is not just an administration that comes and goes after a few years, but a hostile nation that our children and grandchildren will be dealing for generations to come and that also illustrates the necessity to continuously improve our self-defense capabilities.”

North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency said the launchers had been freshly produced by the county’s munitions factories and designed to fire “tactical” ballistic missiles, a term that describes systems capable of delivering lower-yield nuclear weapons.