North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has shown off his might with an extravagant military parade flanked by his wife and daughter this week.
Kim has reportedly selected his 13-year-old daughter as his heir, according to South Korea’s spy agency, the National Intelligence Service (NIS).
Kim Ju Ae has slowly been included in public proceedings and high-profile events in recent months, including a visit to Beijing in September.
The agency said it took a “range of circumstances” into account, including her increasingly prominent public presence at official events, in making this assessment.
The no-holds-barred affair featured more than 14,000 of the nation’s troops following the conclusion of the nation’s Ninth Party Congress.
The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported Thursday that leader Kim Jong-un delivered a speech warning enemies and boasting the “absolute” loyalty and obedience shown by his troops.
His speech repeated the rhetoric preached by the notorious hermit kingdom since its inception: attack us at your peril.
“Our military will immediately launch devastating retaliatory strikes against any military hostile act by any force that violates the sovereignty and security interests of our country,” he said.
He added that the parade is meant to instil “fear” in enemy nations and that the DPRK military possesses a “will of annihilation that can preempt the enemy’s will to wage war.”
According to Kim, the nation has “overwhelming military and technical capabilities to win in any battle, and an iron military discipline through which the entire military moves as one.”
Kim stood at the front of the rostrum at Kim Il Sung Square in central Pyongyang with top military officials, including defence minister No Kwang Chol and KPA Chief of Staff Ri Yong Gil.
Separate KCNA reports on the final day of the Party Congress provided more details on Kim’s approach to relations with the US and South Korea and on weapons development plans.
Fifty block formations goosestepped through the square after Kim’s speech, followed by aircraft flyovers and a propaganda “performance.” Participants included KPA corps, specialised units, students from top military universities, and “overseas operations unit columns and overseas engineering regiment columns,” with soldiers carrying DPRK and Russian flags to commemorate North Korea’s troop deployments for the war against Ukraine.
Kim’s ultimatum for Trump
Kim said North Korea could “get along” with Washington if it accepted Pyongyang’s nuclear status, state media said Thursday, but has dashed any hopes of mended ties with “deceptive” neighbour Seoul.
Washington and Seoul have mounted a renewed push for high-level talks with reclusive North Korea, eyeing a potential summit between Kim and US President Donald Trump in China later this year.
Having largely ignored these overtures for months, Kim finally staked his position as thousands gathered in Pyongyang for a rare congress of the ruling Workers’ Party.
If Washington “respects our country’s current (nuclear) status … and withdraws its hostile policy … there is no reason why we cannot get along well with the United States,” Kim said, according to the Korean Central News Agency.
The United States has for decades led efforts to dismantle North Korea’s nuclear program — but summits, sanctions and diplomatic pressure have had little impact.
The last summit between Kim and Trump in 2019 unravelled as the leaders argued over sanctions relief and what nuclear concessions North Korea might make in return.
Trump is slated to travel to China — North Korea’s longtime ally — in late March through early April.
Speculation is mounting that he may seek to meet with Kim on the sidelines of this trip.
A Trump-Kim meeting would be a major breakthrough after years of deadlocked diplomacy.
Trump stepped up his courtship of Kim during a tour of Asia last year, saying he was “100 per cent” open to a meeting.
He even bucked long-held US policy by conceding that North Korea was already “sort of a nuclear power”.
North Korea’s economy has for years languished under heavy Western sanctions that aim to choke off funding for its nuclear weapons program.
— with AFP
