North Korean leader Kim Jong Un told the second day of a rare ruling party congress that he wants to bolster the nuclear-armed country’s “defense capabilities,” state-run media said Thursday, just two weeks before U.S. President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration.

In a report to the congress, Kim vowed to “reliably protect the security of the country and people and the peaceful environment ... by placing the state defense capabilities on a much higher level, and put forth goals for realizing it,” the official Korean Central News Agency said.

Although the word “nuclear” did not come up in his report or in a speech on the first day of the congress, Kim noted in his earlier address that the North had created a "strong guarantee" that protects the "destiny of the motherland” — a thinly veiled reference to its nuclear weapons program.