North Korea’s end goal is the forcible unification of the peninsula under Pyongyang rule, chief of U.S. Pacific Command Admiral Harry Harris told a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee in Washington DC on Wednesday.

Harris is now the third senior U.S. official to publicly suggest North Korea is developing nuclear weapons in order to coerce South Korea into unification under its terms.

“I think we are self-limiting if we view North Korea’s nuclear ambitions as solely a means to safeguard his regime,” Harris said.

“I do think that he is after reunification under a single communist system. So