North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Monday called for the constitution to be changed to ensure that South Korea is seen as the "primary foe" and warned his country did not intend to avoid war should it happen, state media KCNA reported on Tuesday.

In a speech to the Supreme People's Assembly, North Korea's rubber-stamp parliament, Kim said he had concluded that unification with the South was no longer possible, and accused Seoul of seeking regime collapse and unification by absorption.

Kim said the constitution should be amended to educate North Koreans that South Korea is a "primary foe and invariable principal enemy" and define the North's territory as separate from the South.

"We don't want war but we have no intention of avoiding it," Kim was quoted as saying by KCNA.

North Korea should also plan for "completely occupying, subjugating and reclaiming" South Korea in the event of a war, and South Koreans should also no longer be referred to as fellow countrymen, Kim added, calling for the severing of all inter-Korean communication and the destruction of a monument to reunification in Pyongyang.

Three organisations dealing with unification and inter-Korean tourism would also be shut down, state media added.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, at a cabinet meeting, said Pyongyang was being "anti-national" for calling the South a hostile country.

Kim's call for constitutional changes come as tensions have worsened in the Korean Peninsula recently amid a series of missile tests and a push by Pyongyang to break with decades of policy and change how it relates to the South.

Analysts have said North Korea's foreign ministry could take over relations with Seoul, and potentially help justify the use of nuclear weapons against the South in a future war.

Ruediger Frank, professor of East Asian Economy and Society at the University of Vienna, said Kim's new policies "will trigger a cascade of changes across inter-Korean relations and regional dynamics".

"This opens the door to regular interstate relations, including both diplomatic normalisation and potential conflict," Frank wrote in the report for the U.S.-based 38 North project.

Kim Jong Un dismantles North Korean agencies talking to South

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un dismantled North Korean government organizations in charge of managing relations with South Korea, citing the North’s hostility with the South, The Associated Press reported Monday.

The decision to slash the agencies came during a meeting of the North’s rubber-stamp Parliament on Monday, The AP reported, citing North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

During a speech at the meeting, Kim took aim at South Korea and the United States for escalating tensions and said it is not possible for the North to have a peaceful reunification with the South.

The move underscores Kim’s recent decision to not pursue reconciliation with the South and comes weeks after he said continuing to attempt reconciliation with the rival nation was a “mistake.”

Kim on Monday urged the assembly to rewrite the North’s constitution in its next meeting to label South Korea as the North’s “No. 1 hostile country,” KCNA reportedly said.

The Supreme People’s Assembly said Monday the two Koreas are in an “acute confrontation,” and it would be a mistake for the North to consider the South a partner in diplomacy, the news wire said.

“The Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Country, the National Economic Cooperation Bureau and the [Mount Kumgang] International Tourism Administration, tools which existed for [North-South] dialogue, negotiations and cooperation are abolished,” the assembly wrote in a statement, per the AP.

The National Economic Cooperation Bureau and the Mount Kumgang International Tourism Administration were tasked with handling joint economic and tourism projects between the Koreas during a short period of reconciliation in the 2000s, but such projects were halted in recent years amid escalating tensions, the AP reported.

Tensions have spiked in the Korean Peninsula in recent months as the North continues missile tests and the South expands its joint military training with the U.S. In remarks at the end of last year, Kim vowed to launch three new military spy satellites, produce attack drones and expand the country’s nuclear materials in the coming year.

The moves come one day after North Korea claimed it successfully test-fired a hypersonic missile in an effort to verify the ability of the hypersonic warhead and the solid-fuel engines. China and Russia both have hypersonic missiles of their own, as the U.S. races to develop one of its own.