North Korean leader Kim Jong-un paid tribute to the North’s founder Wednesday as the country celebrated the 103rd birthday of Kim’s late grandfather in what could be a display of Kim’s tight grip on power.
The young leader Kim visited the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun, accompanied by senior military officials, earlier in the day to commemorate the birthday of Kim Il-sung, known as the “Day of the Sun,” according to the Korean Central News Agency, the North’s official media.
Since 1997, the North has celebrated the April 15 anniversary with lavish sporting events and festivals to show its respect to the leader who died in 1994.
The anniversary comes as North Korea’s current leader is believed to have consolidated his power after the end of the three-year mourning period, following the death of his father, Kim Jong-il.
Kim, who is presumed to be in his early 30s, took power in 2011 after his father died from a heart attack.
The anniversary was used as an occasion that the current leader Kim displayed the power that he inherited from his father as the reclusive country entered into a third generation, experts say.
“The current leader Kim has consolidated his power more than outsiders believe,” said Cheong Seong-chang, a senior research fellow at the Sejong Institute.
North Korean ranking officials, including its ceremonial leader Kim Yong-nam, pledged allegiance to the young leader on Tuesday.
The KCNA said that a basket of flowers in the name of the young leader was placed before the statues of the current leader’s grandfather and father at the palace, a mausoleum in Pyongyang where the embalmed bodies of the two former leaders are kept.
“The participants vowed to actively work in building the strongest country quickly by following the teachings by the two
(former) leaders and forming solidarity toward the (current) leader Kim,” the KCNA said in a dispatch monitored in Seoul.
The North’s leader has vowed to simultaneously pursue nuclear weapons and economic development, commonly known as the “byongjin policy,” making the country more isolated in the international community. Seoul and others have called on the North to abandon its nuclear ambitions.
At a parliamentary session that convened in Pyongyang this past Thursday, North Korea reaffirmed its will to continue to expand its nuclear capability while trying to bolster its weak economy this year.
North Korea is under heavy sanctions imposed by the U.N. Security Council for its nuclear tests in 2006, 2009 and 2013 and ballistic missile launches. Some experts said that Pyongyang’s nuclear arsenal could be expanded to up to 100 bombs by 2020.
While the North is facing severe food shortages, it is desperate to be engaged in brisk diplomacy to stave off international isolation.
As the North’s ties with China, its long-time ally, have turned sour due to its last nuclear test, Pyongyang is seeking a closer relationship with Russia.
Cheong at the Sejong Institute said that North Korea’s relations with China are likely to gradually improve down the road, given China’s invitation to Kim to its war commemorations in September and its opposition to Washington’s bid to deploy an advanced missile defense system on South Korean soil.
“North Korea’s move to break international isolation is likely to continue,” Cheong added.
The young leader’s grandfather created “juche,” or the North’s guiding ideology, which emphasizes self-reliance and independence. (Yonhap)
