A top North Korean military official defended Pyongyang’s nuclear policy as “irreversible” at a major security forum in China on Thursday and pledged closer military cooperation with Beijing.

In a speech at the 13th Beijing Xiangshan Forum, Vice Defense Minister Kim Kang Il said that the “reckless political and military confrontational maneuvers” of the U.S. and its allies targeting the DPRK for 80 years are the “fundamental reason” the Korean Peninsula remains trapped in a “vicious cycle of confrontation,” according to footage of the event.

“The ceaseless nuclear arms buildup of the enemy states fully justifies the building of a