North Korea plans to deploy a new type of artillery along its southern border, state media reported on Friday, a move that could place Seoul within striking range as Pyongyang intensifies its hostile posture toward South Korea, News.Az reports, citing AFP.

Despite ongoing peace overtures from the South Korean government, North Korea has repeatedly described Seoul as its primary adversary. It has also recently removed long-standing references to Korean unification from its constitution.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visited a munitions factory this week to inspect production of a “new-type 155-millimetre self-propelled gun-howitzer,” according to the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

KCNA said the weapon has a range exceeding 60 kilometres (37 miles) and will be deployed this year to a long-range artillery unit positioned near the border with South Korea.

Central Seoul lies roughly 50 to 60 kilometres from the border, meaning much of Gyeonggi province—South Korea’s most populous region and home to major industrial centers—would also fall within range.

The howitzer will “provide significant changes and advantages to our military’s ground operations,” KCNA reported Kim as saying.

North and South Korea remain technically at war, as their 1950–53 conflict ended in an armistice rather than a peace treaty.

In recent years, Pyongyang has destroyed roads and railways linking the two Koreas and is also reported to have constructed barriers near the border.

In another sign of its hardened stance, North Korea has removed all references to reunification of the Korean Peninsula from its constitution, according to an AFP review of the latest version this week.

The document no longer includes a clause stating that Pyongyang seeks “the reunification of the homeland,” and instead adds a provision defining North Korea’s territory as extending northward to China and Russia, and southward to the “Republic of Korea,” the official name of South Korea.

The South Korean presidential office said on Thursday that it will continue efforts to pursue peace with the North.

In a separate report, KCNA said Kim Jong Un also visited the 5,000-ton destroyer Choe Hyon on Thursday to oversee handling tests ahead of its official deployment.

State media images showed his daughter, Ju Ae, accompanying him during the visit to the Yellow Sea, where he boarded the warship and reviewed its capabilities.

Another image showed Kim smiling while seated with Ju Ae in the ship’s mess hall, surrounded by uniformed marines eating instant rice meals.

North Korea has recently conducted strategic cruise missile launches from the Choe Hyon, which analysts believe could be capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

Kim reportedly expressed satisfaction with the vessel’s progress and instructed officials to transfer it to the navy by mid-June as scheduled, KCNA said.

News.Az 

By Nijat Babayev