Wednesday,
16 October 2019 03:29 GMT
By Josh Smith
The Lone Stranger
SEOUL, Oct 16 (Reuters) - Aides to Kim Jong Un are
convinced the North Korean leader plans "a great operation", state
media said on Wednesday in a report that included lavish descriptions and
images of the leader riding a white horse up North Korea's most sacred
mountain.
In the photos released by state news agency KCNA, Kim
is seen riding alone on a large white horse through snowy fields and woods on
Mt Paektu, the spiritual homeland of the Kim dynasty.
"His march on horseback in Mt Paektu is a great
event of weighty importance in the history of the Korean revolution," KCNA
said.
"Having witnessed the great moments of his
thinking atop Mt Paektu, all the officials accompanying him were convinced with
overflowing emotion and joy that there will be a great operation to strike the
world with wonder again and make a step forward in the Korean revolution."
It was unclear what the operation might involve, but
Kim has often made trips to the sacred mountain at times of major policy
endeavours
Analysts say the symbolism underscores North Korea
standing up to international sanctions and pressure over its nuclear weapons
and ballistic missile programmes.
"This is a statement, symbolic of defiance,"
said Joshua Pollack, a North Korea expert at the Middlebury Institute of
International Studies in California. "The pursuit of sanctions relief is
over. Nothing is made explicit here, but it starts to set new expectations
about the coming course of policy for 2020."
In late 2017, Kim visited Mt Paektu days after North
Korea launched its largest intercontinental ballistic missile, and weeks before
he made a key New Year's speech in which he opened the door to engagement with
South Korea.
Last year, Kim took South Korean President Moon Jae-in
to the top of the mountain as part of a historic summit.
Since then relations have cooled and Kim has said he
will only wait until the end of the year for the United States to soften its
stance in denuclearisation negotiations before North Korea will pursue an
unspecified new path forward.
Several experts said much of the rhetoric in the KCNA
report revolves around the economy, and they suspect North Korea may soon
conduct a space launch. That would enable the North to show of its economic and
technological power in a less provocative way than by testing an ICBM.
The language in Wednesday's state media report
suggests Kim may be "contemplating some major policy decisions," said
Rachel Minyoung Lee, an analyst with NK News, a website that monitors North
Korea.
"The report in Korean has characterized Kim's
climb up to Mt Paektu on horseback as a new ‘myth', and that, together with the
images of him on a white horse, appear to have been designed to create maximum
propaganda effect, which I believe media will play up in the days to
come," Lee said. (Reporting by Josh Smith. Editing by Lincoln Feast.)
No comments:
Post a Comment