South Korea believes that North Korea is poised to increase tension on the peninsula in 2024 in the wake of the regime’s plenary meeting of the Central Committee of the ruling Workers’ Party.

A unification ministry official said on Tuesday that Seoul expects Pyongyang to focus more on developing strategic weapons as suggested by its leader Kim Jong-un, including his pledge to launch three more military reconnaissance satellites.

In response, the ministry official said the government strongly condemns North Korea’s hostile stance, including its continued nuclear development and fundamental change in policy toward South Korea, to which Seoul will respond with strengthened cooperation with the international community.

During the year-end key party meeting, Kim Jong-un defined inter-Korean ties as relations between two states hostile to each other while vowing to overwhelmingly bolster war readiness against the U.S.

The North Korean leader also said he will no longer consider the South a counterpart in reconciliation and unification, while calling for a “great event to pacify the whole territory” of South Korea by mobilizing all physical means and nuclear force.