N Korea honours ex-boss
North Korea marked the birthday of late leader Kim Jong-il yesterday with no outward provocation against the United States, in the run-up to a second summit between the two countries later this month.
National flags and placards were placed along major thoroughfares of Pyongyang in celebration of the father of the current leader Kim Jong-un, who has recently pledged to revitalise the nation’s economy hit hard by international sanctions.
Ahead of Kim Jong-un’s planned summit with US President Donald Trump on Feb 27-28 in the Vietnamese capital Hanoi, political slogans in public spaces made no mention of the country’s ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programmes.
To commemorate the anniversary, known as “the Day of the Shining Star” in North Korea, various cultural and sports events, including a flower festival, a figure skating show and an artistic swimming performance took place in Pyongyang.
The Day of the Shining Star is one of the most important holidays in North Korea, along with April 15, called the “Day of the Sun”, which marks the birth of the nation’s founder Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-un’s grandfather.
From early in the morning, citizens and military personnel laid flowers and bowed before giant statues of Kim Jong-il and Kim Il-sung on Mansu Hill in the heart of Pyongyang, which was covered with a thin layer of snow.
With a jovial mood prevailing, North Korean people gathered in the centre of the capital to dance in sub-zero weather.
At an annual exhibition featuring more than 30,000 roots of “Kimjongilia”, a red blossom of the begonia family named after the former leader, there were no replicas of satellite-carrying rockets or missiles, unlike on previous anniversaries.
Missiles and rockets are “not necessary” for the festival to celebrate the birth of the late leader, Kim Ji-sung, a 25-year-old Japanese-speaking guide, told Kyodo News.
In the past, replicas of satellite-carrying rockets, which other countries suspected North Korea had used for ballistic missile technology tests, were on display along with the flowers at the festival, sources familiar with the situation in Pyongyang said.
While such replicas and items promoting nuclear development have been absent, banners and placards emphasising the significance of economic construction have been installed in many places in the city.
Following an intercontinental ballistic missile test on Nov 29, 2017, Mr Kim declared North Korea had “finally realised the great historic cause of completing the state nuclear force”. The country has since suspended ballistic missile tests.
In April last year, the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea, led by Kim Jong-un, made a commitment to concentrate more on building a “powerful socialist economy”, while promising to discontinue nuclear and ICBM tests.
At their historic first summit in Singapore on June 12, 2018, Kim Jong-un and Mr Trump agreed that the United States would provide security guarantees to North Korea in return for “complete denuclearisation” of the Korean Peninsula.
Negotiations between the two nations, however, have shown little sign of moving forward against a backdrop of the Trump administration’s scepticism about North Korea’s commitment to abandoning its nuclear arsenal.
Pyongyang, meanwhile, has urged Washington to relax international economic sanctions aimed at preventing it from pursuing ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons.