North's Kim calls for combat readiness at photo session with army company leaders

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has urged company commanders to intensify training and sharpen combat readiness, calling it their "primary revolutionary task," state media reported Wednesday.

He made the remark Tuesday at a photo session with participants in the Third Meeting of Company Leaders of the Korean People's Army (KPA), the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.

Pak Jong-chon, vice chairman of the Central Military Commission of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK); Defense Minister Kim Song-gi; and KPA Chief of the General Staff Ri Yong-gil were with the leader.

"The primary revolutionary task of the company leaders is to round off the combat preparations of their units for getting fully ready for fighting a war and the way for its implementation is to bring about a radical improvement in the strenuous and intensive training," Kim was quoted as saying by the KCNA.

He said their loyalty and leadership should be demonstrated through successes in turning their units into "a-match-for-a-hundred ranks with firm revolutionary faith, patriotic spirit and matchless heroic mettle and fighting efficiency," the report said.

The future of building a strong army looked "immensely rosy thanks to them," he added.

Kim had presided over the meeting on Thursday and Friday in Pyongyang, where he told the commanders "to build the strongest army and accelerate the Korean-style military revolution by training the strongest companies."

Kim also instructed them to "firmly carry forward the true nature of our army as the army of the Party and the army of ideology and core elements."

The meeting was the first gathering of the North's entire army since the party's ninth congress in February, the KCNA said.

Yonhap