South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, right, greets Korean War veterans during a ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of the Korean War armistice, in Busan, South Korea, Thursday, July 27, 2023. (Kim Min -Hee/Photo shared via AP)
State media reported Friday that Kim watched the parade on Thursday afternoon alongside Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and China’s ruling party official Li Hongzhong from a balcony overlooking Kim Il Sung Square. , which is named after the founder of North Korea and grandfather of the North Korean president.
The streets and the stands were filled with tens of thousands of spectators mobilized for the occasion, who cheered as the soldiers, tanks and huge intercontinental ballistic missiles made their way down the main avenue.
Photos showed Kim Jong Un smiling and chatting with Shoigu and Li, who stood to his right and left, respectively, in the center of the balcony. Kim and Shoigu waved to the troops taking part in the parade.
The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said the parade also included display flights of newly developed spy and attack drones, which were featured for the first time by state media this week while reporting on an weapons display. attended by Kim and Shoigu.
The KCNA did not say whether Kim made any speeches during the parade. He synthesized, however, a speech by North Korean Defense Minister Kang Sun Nam, who described the parade as a historic celebration of the “great victory against the US imperialists and the forces of the nations that accompanied them” and noted that the north, under Kim’s leadership, could “prosper indefinitely.”
Black-and-white synthetic aperture radar images taken from satellites showed what appeared to be a mass gathering of people in the square at 1316 GMT (10:16 p.m. local time) Thursday, said Dave Schmerler, a research associate. senior at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, which is part of the Middlebury Institute for International Studies in Monterey.
Cloudy skies over Pyongyang in recent days had made preparations for the parade, which took place overnight, difficult.
FOUNTAIN: Associated Press
