Kim Jong-un on January 6, 2021, in Pyongyang.

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STR / KCNA VIA KNS / AFP

Here Joe Biden warned: North Korea is not decided to bury the hatchet with Washington, change of president or not.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un says the United States is his country's "greatest enemy", a provocative statement to the world's leading power on the eve of the start of the president-elect's mandate .

Kim Jong-un also assured that his country was going to acquire a nuclear submarine, reported Saturday the official agency KCNA, received in Seoul.

His statement comes less than two weeks before Joe Biden takes office as President of the United States and when relations between Kim and outgoing President Donald Trump have been tumultuous.

Pyongyang "should focus and develop in order to subvert the United States, the biggest obstacle to our revolution and our biggest enemy," he said at the ruling party's 8th convention according to the agency.

Joe Biden and Kim Jong-un, a deep-rooted hatred

After exchanging insults and threats of nuclear war, Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump have made an extraordinary rapprochement, marked by meetings as historic as they are symbolic.

But no progress has been made on the thorny issue of Pyongyang's nuclear and ballistic programs.

And negotiations have stalled since the resounding failure of the second summit between the two men at the end of February 2019 in Hanoi.

One of the reasons for this stalemate has been the lack of consensus on the concessions North Korea should make in exchange for lifting international sanctions against it.

But Trump has never inspired North Korea to hate Joe Biden, a "mad dog" who should be "beaten to death".

For his part, the president-elect called Kim Jong-un a “thug”.

"Whoever is in power (note, in the United States), the true nature of his policy against North Korea will never change," Kim Jong-un said without naming Joe Biden, according to KCNA.

So many words that will be seen as a provocation to the new American administration.

“The Singapore and Hanoi summit bill has expired,” Carnegie Endowment analyst Ankit Panda tweeted.

"And it's up to the Biden administration to settle it," he said.

Towards a North Korean nuclear submarine?

Under the presidency of Joe Biden, the United States should return to a much more traditional approach vis-à-vis Pyongyang, in particular insisting on the fact that it will take significant progress at the level of working groups before even consider a new meeting between heads of state.

For its part, North Korea justifies its nuclear programs banned by the international community by the threat that Washington would pose to the very survival of its regime.

And for decades, the government has allocated vast resources to the development of these programs, even if it means receiving ever more penalizing sanctions for its economy and its population.

At the Workers' Party meeting, the North Korean leader also announced that his country has carried out a plan to acquire a nuclear submarine.

"New planning research for a nuclear submarine has been completed and is about to enter the final review process," he said according to the agency.

The country should "further develop nuclear technology" and produce light and small nuclear warheads to be used "according to the intended targets," he added.

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