North Korea has reportedly changed its constitution to require an immediate nuclear strike if leader Kim Jong Un is killed in a foreign attack, according to The Telegraph.
The amendments were passed during a session of the Supreme People’s Assembly in Pyongyang on 22 March, the newspaper said.
Details of the revised policy were disclosed by South Korea’s National Intelligence Service during a closed briefing for officials.
Under the new law, if North Korea’s nuclear command-and-control system comes under threat from an enemy strike, a nuclear retaliation must be launched "automatically and immediately."
The Telegraph said Pyongyang moved to change the rules after the death of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and several senior officials in joint US-Israeli strikes on Tehran.
Andrei Lankov, a professor at Kookmin University in Seoul, said the Iranian episode acted as a warning to North Korea.
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"Iran was the wake-up call. North Korea saw the remarkable efficiency of the US-Israeli decapitation attacks, which immediately eliminated the greater part of the Iranian leadership, and they must now be terrified," Lankov said.
He added that replicating such an operation against North Korea would be far harder due to the country’s near-total isolation, strict controls on foreigners, and limited intelligence access.
The report stated that Kim Jong Un has long feared assassination.
It added that he avoids flying and usually travels by armoured train under heavy security.
Kim’s sister, Kim Yo Jong, has previously said the US must accept a "new reality," stating that North Korea’s nuclear programme is final and not open to negotiation.
Kim Jong Un has since announced a strategy to develop both nuclear and conventional forces simultaneously.
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