North Korea on Saturday marked the birthday of late leader Kim Jong Il with no outward provocation against the United States, in the run-up to a second summit between the two countries later this month.
Flags and placards have been placed along all highways and main roads of Pyongyang in celebration of the father of the current leader Kim Jong Un, who has recently pledged to revitalize the nation’s economy.
Ahead of Kim Jong Un’s planned summit with President Donald Trump in late February in Hanoi, Vietnam’s capital city.
photo credit to: https://www.japantimes.co.jp
To commemorate the anniversary includes a flower festival, a figure skating show and an artistic swimming performance, have taken place in Pyongyang.
The celebration is one of the most important holidays in North Korea, along with April 15, called the “Day of the Sun” which marks the birth of Kim Il Sung, the late country’s founder and Kim Jong Un’s grandfather.
From early in the morning, citizens and military personnel laid flowers and bowed before giant statues of Kim Jong Il and Kim Il Sung on Mansu Hill in the heart of Pyongyang, which was covered with a thin layer of snow.
There was an exhibition of more than 30,000 red blossom roots of the begonia family named after the former leader, which is held once a year. In the past decades, there were many rockets that could carry satellites into space – or at least suspected to be capable of launching satellites into space.
Previous celebrations show that replicas of satellite-carrying rockets and rocket launchers were on display along with the flowers at the festival. This caused many nations to be suspicious of the Hermit Kingdom.
Following an intercontinental ballistic missile test on November 2017, Kim Jong Un declared North Korea had realized the great historic cause of completing the state nuclear force. However, North Korea has since suspended ballistic missile tests.
This has caused mixed reactions on the international community.
Reference: North Korea marks late leader’s birthday without anti-U.S. provocation
