At military parade, Kim vows to boost North Korea nuclear arsenal

SEOUL, South Korea, April 27 ------ North Korea will rapidly accelerate the development of its nuclear arsenal, leader Kim Jong Un said while overseeing a vast military parade showcasing his most powerful intercontinental ballistic missiles, state media reported on April 26.

Despite biting sanctions, North Korea has doubled down on Kim’s military modernization drive, test-firing a slew of banned weapons this year while ignoring US offers of talks — as analysts warn of a likely resumption of nuclear tests.

Dressed in a white military uniform trimmed with gold brocade, Kim watched as tanks, rocket launchers and his largest ICBMs were paraded through Pyongyang late Monday for the founding anniversary of North Korea’s armed forces, state media reported. Kim said he would “take measures for further developing the nuclear forces of our state at the fastest possible speed”, according to KCTV footage of his speech. “The nuclear forces, the symbol of our national strength and the core of our military power, should be strengthened in terms of both quality and scale,” he said.

Repeated negotiations aimed at convincing Kim to give up his nuclear weapons programs have come to nothing, and he warned Monday he could use his atomic arsenal if North Korea’s “fundamental interests” were threatened. Kim’s messaging on the purpose of his nuclear weapons could be a response to South Korea’s new hawkish, conservative President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol, who takes office May 10, analysts said. “Yoon has threatened a pre-emptive strike on Pyongyang if needed, and Kim seems to be indirectly saying that he may have to respond with nuclear tactics,” said Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies.

Kim’s uniform with a marshal’s star — North Korea’s highest military rank — was also a signal for Seoul, said Cheong Seong-chang of the Sejong Institute. “It symbolizes his ultra-strong stance to the incoming Yoon Suk-yeol administration,” he said. Kim’s parade speech “suggests that the threshold for North Korea’s use of nuclear weapons can be lowered even further”, he added.

Columns of goose-stepping soldiers waving flags and carrying weapons marched through a floodlit square, KCTV footage showed, with North Korea’s famous news anchor Ri Chun Hi announcing each unit. Flanked by his generals, Kim smiled, waved and saluted the troops, North Korean jets in formation flew low, and then huge missiles — from short-range ballistic to hypersonic — on transporters were driven through the square. “This is state-of-the-art equipment with strong striking power that can pre-emptively and thoroughly annihilate any enemy outside of our territory,” Ri said in a voiceover.

Footage showed the parade showcasing the Hwasong-17, the country’s most advanced ICBM that Pyongyang claims to have successfully tested March 24. “For all the hype and months of practice, Monday’s North Korean military parade didn’t really show many novel capabilities,” said Chad O’Carroll of Seoul-based specialist website NK News, adding that “we’ve seen the vast majority of this two years ago”.

North Korea stages military parades to mark important holidays and events. Observers closely monitor these events for clues on Pyongyang’s latest weapons development. As Kim and his wife walked away with the parade ending, KCTV showed a close-up of a spectator weeping, seemingly in joy, as fireworks exploded overhead.

Source: mb.com.ph