Pyongyang, September 8 (KCNA) -- In order to thoroughly implement the powerful army-building line and policy of the Workers’ Party of Korea, which has set it as an urgent task to bolster up the Juche-based naval force as required by the historic turning point in building up the country’s defence capabilities and the army, the respected Comrade Kim Jong Un made a field survey for the construction of a modern naval base and clarified the orientation and ways to this end.

He was accompanied by Marshal Pak Jong Chon, vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission of the WPK and secretary of the WPK Central Committee, Kang Sun Nam, minister of National Defence of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Ri Chang Ho, deputy chief of the General Staff and director of the General Reconnaissance Bureau of the Korean People’s Army, Kim Myong Sik, commander of the KPA Navy, and commanders of the East and West Sea Fleets of the Navy.

Looking round the site chosen for construction of harbour facilities along the coast, he discussed with leading officials the practical issues related to the orientation of construction.

He said that the DPRK, a maritime country bounded on the east and west sides by the sea, has always attached importance to the shipbuilding industry and the development of naval force in the building of the state and the national defence capabilities.

Adding that to build a modern and multifunctional naval base is a process of key importance in developing the naval force into a powerful service in conformity with the regional security environment in a short span of time according to the strong army-building goal for the new era set forth by the Eighth Party Congress, he explained the geopolitical advantage of the site for the construction of a new naval base as a strategic vantage.

Now that we are soon to possess large surface warships and submarines which cannot be anchored at the existing facilities for mooring warships, the construction of a naval base for running the latest large warships has become a pressing task, he said, and stressed the need to build a naval port capable of mooring warships and operating the systems of weapons on board and establishing a cultured way of life in a modern base for seamen. And he said that it is an urgent task of the times to build a modern port city as a symbol of the naval force of the DPRK and a centre of the naval operational command and culture of the Navy.

He also indicated the military measures for deploying the anti-aircraft and coastal-defence weapon systems for defending the naval port.

He underlined the need to make epochal progress in implementing the Party’s line of bolstering up the naval combat power by pushing ahead with the immediate measures.

It is the most important state affair and the first task of the revolution advanced by the WPK to steadily develop the revolutionary army, the powerful vanguard and main force for accomplishing the revolutionary cause of Juche, and thus reliably defend the prosperity and security of the country and the people and the happiness of posterity. -0-