North Korea marks founding day with parade, deepens ties with China and Russia
- North Korean leader Kim Jong-un observed the parade and held meetings with a visiting Chinese delegation led by Vice-Premier Liu Guozhong
- Growing China-Russia-North Korea cooperation shows ‘widening fissure in Asia’s geopolitical landscape’, one analyst says
North Korea marked its founding anniversary with a parade attended by leader Kim Jong-un as well as Russian diplomats and a high-ranking Chinese delegation, state media said on Saturday, as Pyongyang deepens ties with Moscow and Beijing.
The Friday event featured Pyongyang’s “paramilitary forces”, state media said, rather than soldiers in the regular army, and it did not appear to showcase the country’s banned weaponry including intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Images in state media showed uniformed paramilitary brigades, including some riding tractors or in large red trucks, as Kim, flanked by his young daughter, looked on smiling and clapping.
Kim Il-sung Square “was full of excitement and joy of the spectators significantly celebrating the birthday of their great powerful country”, the official Korean Central News Agency reported.
“All the participants paid the highest glory and warmest thanks to Kim Jong-un, peerless patriot and ever-victorious iron-willed commander.”
Kim met the visiting Chinese delegation led by Liu Guozhong, vice-premier of the State Council, the second such visit by top officials from Beijing in six weeks, as Pyongyang shows signs of easing its strict Covid-era border controls.