North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, has called for a change to the constitution to identify South Korea as the “number one hostile state”, ending the regime’s commitment to unifying the Korean peninsula.

In a speech to the supreme people’s assembly – North Korea’s rubber-stamp parliament – Kim said he no longer believed unification was possible and accused the South of attempting to foment regime change and promote unification by stealth.

In another sign of quickly deteriorating ties between the two Koreas, which ended their 1950-53 war with a truce but not a peace treaty – Kim said: “We don’t want war, but we have no intention of avoiding it.”