Central Seoul lies around 50 to 60km from the frontier, and much of Gyeonggi province – South Korea’s most populous, home to key industrial hubs – would also fall within range.
The howitzer will “provide significant changes and advantages to our military’s ground operations”, KCNA reported Kim as saying.
North and South Korea remain technically at war because their 1950-53 conflict ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty.
In recent years, Pyongyang has blown up roads and railways linking it with the South, and purportedly built barriers near the border.
In another sign of its hardening stance, North Korea deleted all references to uniting the divided peninsula from its constitution, an AFP review of the latest version this week showed.
The document no longer contains a clause saying Pyongyang seeks “the reunification of the homeland”, and includes a new one defining North Korea’s territory as extending northwards to China and Russia, and southwards to the “Republic of Korea”, the South’s official name.
South Korea’s presidential office said on Thursday that it would continue to pursue peace efforts with the North.
In a separate report, KCNA said Kim visited the 5,000-ton destroyer Choe Hyon on Thursday to oversee handling tests ahead of its formal deployment.
