NORTH Korean leader Kim Jong Un said that an elevated United States military partnership with South Korea and Japan poses a grave threat to his country and vowed to further bolster his nuclear weapons programme, state media reported today.

In a speech marking the 77th founding anniversary of the Korean People’s Army on Saturday, Mr Kim said that the US-Japan-South Korea trilateral security partnership established under a US plot to form a Nato-like regional military bloc is inviting military imbalance on the Korean peninsula and “raising a grave challenge to the security environment of our state,” according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

“Referring to a series of new plans for rapidly bolstering all deterrence including nuclear forces, he clarified once again the unshakeable policy of more highly developing the nuclear forces,” KCNA said.

In response to US and South Korean expanded military exercises, Pyongyang says it has enlarged and modernised its nuclear arsenal.

It has slammed the US and South Korean drills as a rehearsal to invade.

Since his January 20 inauguration, US President Donald Trump has said he will reach out to Mr Kim again to revive diplomacy.

During a joint news conference with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba on Friday, President Trump said that “we will have relations with North Korea, with Kim Jong Un. I got along with him very well, as you know.”

Mr Trump and Mr Kim met three times in 2018-19 to discuss how to end North Korea’s nuclear programme in what was the first-ever summit between the leaders of the US and North Korea. But talks eventually collapsed.

A joint statement issued by Mr Trump and Mr Ishiba after their summit stated the two leaders reaffirmed “their resolute commitment to the complete denuclearisation of the DPRK” (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the North’s formal name).

North Korea hasn’t directly responded to Mr Trump’s comments.