North Korean leader drives combat vehicle, calls for increased missile production

According to KCNA, the above statement was made by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un during a two-day visit to major factories that produce strategic missiles, rocket launchers and many other military weapons on Friday and Saturday.

Kim Jong-un's visit comes less than a week after the North Korean leader conducted "field guidance" at major weapons factories as South Korea and the United States plan to hold their annual Ulchi Freedom Shield military exercises later this month, which Pyongyang has denounced as a rehearsal for an invasion.

The move also came just days after Kim Jong-un chaired an expanded meeting of the Central Military Commission of the Workers' Party of Korea, calling for preparations to respond to the possibility of a war.

“He set an important goal to drastically increase the existing rocket production capacity... to mass-produce rockets according to the requirements of the expanded and strengthened system of frontline units and rocket units and according to action plans,” KCNA said.

Accordingly, leader Kim Jong-un also said that the Korean People's Army needs to be equipped with "overwhelming military force" to "cope with any war at any time to prevent the enemies from daring to use their armed forces and will surely destroy them if they launch an attack".

During a visit to a factory producing tactical transporter-launcher (TEL), Kim called for the production of “more modern and highly efficient TELs to make practical contributions to the army’s full war preparedness.”

Images released by North Korean state media showed the country's leader driving a "newly developed multi-purpose armored fighting vehicle" while visiting one of the factories.