SEOUL: North Korea lauded the military might built up by deceased leader Kim Jong-il on Friday, likely tying his young successor to the same policies that have set Northeast Asia on edge as the impoverished state inches closer to nuclear weapons capability.
A gathering of 100,000, soldiers in uniform and bare-headed civilians, gathered in silence in wintry sunlight in the capital Pyongyang to mourn the passing of the man who had led the country for 17 years until his death on December 17.
Kim Jong-un, a jowly man in his late 20s who will become the third of his line to lead North Korea, took centre stage overlooking the central square named after his grandfather to listen to tributes to the “great revolutionary”.
“Great Leader Kim Jong-il … laid the foundation for our people to live on as autonomous people of a world-class military power and a proud nuclear state,” parliament chief Kim Yong-nam said in the eulogy.
The North has conducted two nuclear tests.
Larry Niksch, who has tracked North Korea for the non-partisan US Congressional Research Service for 43 years, believes it could take as little as one to two years to have a working nuclear missile once it produced enough highly-enriched uranium for the warhead’s core fuel.
That could threaten regional security and give the North a powerful bargaining tool in extracting aid for its economy.
North Korea’s state television footage showed the young Kim flanked to his right by the country’s top military general Ri Yong-ho on the balcony of the Grand People’s Study House. Also nearby him were Defence Minister Kim Yong-chun, and his uncle and the key power-broker in the transition, Jang Song-thaek.
Jang, 65, is believed to be the regent heading a select group of caretakers, as the brother-in-law of Kim Jong-il who survived purges to become his closest confidant who oversaw the power succession before his death of a heart attack.
He stood behind the younger Kim in Wednesday’s mass funeral parade, escorting the hearse carrying the coffin.
Solemn and grimacing, the younger Kim, believed to be born in early 1984, stood motionless throughout the ceremony. He only came to the forefront of the North’s dynastic succession last year by taking on key military and ruling party posts.
“Comrade Kim Jong-un is the highest leader of the party and people who takes on Great Leader Kim Jong-il’s philosophy and leadership, personality and morals, courage and audacity,” Kim Yong-nam said. (Reuters)