North Korea has passed a new law mandating the use of nuclear weapons in the event of an attack.

North Korea has enshrined in law the use of nuclear weapons in the event of an impending attack. The new law stipulates that a nuclear strike can be carried out automatically in order to destroy the source of the provocation, the country’s state media reported on Friday, according to a South Korean broadcaster.

It was therefore passed at a session of the Supreme People’s Assembly – North Korea’s powerless parliament. With the law, the country’s status as a nuclear weapons state has become irreversible, it said. North Korea is subject to tough international sanctions because of its nuclear weapons program. The authoritarian country already describes itself in its constitution as a nuclear power.