NKorea’s Kim attends parade honoring founder
No military showcase as country marks holiday
SEOUL, South Korea – North Korean leader Kim Jong Un attended a massive civilian parade in the capital, Pyongyang, celebrating a milestone birth anniversary of his state-founding grandfather in which thousands marched in a choreographed display of loyalty to the Kim family, state media said Saturday.
The reports didn’t mention any speech or comments made by Kim during Friday’s event and it appeared the country passed its biggest holiday without showcasing its military hardware, amid heightened tensions over its nuclear program.
Commercial satellite images in recent weeks have indicated preparations for a large military parade in Pyongyang, which could take place on the April 25 founding anniversary of North Korea’s army and display the most advanced weapons in Kim’s nuclear arsenal, such as intercontinental ballistic missiles.
There’s also expectation that Pyongyang will further escalate its weapons testing in the coming weeks or months, possibly including a resumption of nuclear explosive tests or test-flying missiles over Japan, as it attempts to force a response from the Biden administration while it’s preoccupied with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and a rivalry with China.
Ri Il Hwan, a member of the ruling Workers’ Party Politburo, issued a call for loyalty, saying in a speech that North Koreans will “always emerge
victorious” under Kim’s guidance.
The parade came hours before thousands of young people performed a mass dance in the square as fireworks lit up the night sky.
Kim Il Sung’s birthday is the most important national holiday in North Korea, where the Kim family has ruled under a strong personality cult since the nation’s founding in 1948. This past week’s celebrations marking the 110th anniversary of his birth came as his grandson revives nuclear brinkmanship aimed at forcing the United States to accept the idea of North Korea as a nuclear power and remove economic sanctions.
North Korea has opened 2022 with a slew of weapons tests, including its first flight test of an ICBM since 2017. South Korea’s military has also detected signs that North Korea is rebuilding tunnels at a nuclear testing ground it partially dismantled
weeks before Kim’s first summit with then-U.S. President Donald Trump in June 2018.
Kim Jong Un’s defiant displays of his military might are also likely motivated by domestic politics, experts say, as he doesn’t otherwise have significant accomplishments to trumpet to his people after a decade in power.
His stated goals of simultaneously developing nuclear weapons and bringing economic prosperity to his impoverished populace derailed after the collapse of his second summit with Trump in 2019, when the Americans rejected North Korea’s demands for major sanctions relief in exchange for a limited surrender of its nuclear capabilities. COVID-19 unleashed further shock on his broken economy, forcing him to acknowledge last year that the North was facing its “worst-ever situation.”