By Ju-min Park
SEOUL (Reuters) -North Korean leader Kim Jong Un inspected a new missile production line and missile-manufacturing automation process, state media KCNA said on Monday.
His visit on Sunday to the missile production line came ahead of a planned trip to Beijing to attend a military parade where Kim is set to mingle with foreign leaders including Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Ahead of travelling to China, Kim’s tour of a weapons factory appears to have the “intention of showing off missile production capabilities”, said a spokesperson at South Korea’s Unification Ministry that handles inter-Korean affairs.
North Korea is under heavy international sanctions imposed over its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs that were developed in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions.
Experts and international officials say the sanctions have lost much of their bite amid growing economic, military and political support from Russia and China.
Kim said that the modernized production process would help increase major missile units’ combat readiness, according to KCNA.
He expressed satisfaction with a new automated missile production system that would increase productivity and ensure the qualitative character of products, KCNA reported.
North Korea has sent soldiers, artillery ammunition and missiles to Russia to support Moscow in its war against Ukraine.
The North’s foreign ministry also criticised American cooperation with Japan and South Korea, singling out a recent trilateral joint statement that warned of cybersecurity threats from Pyongyang.
The ministry “strongly denounces and rejects” the United States, Japan and South Korea for using cyberspace as a “theatre of geopolitical confrontation and hostile propaganda,” a spokesperson said in a statement carried by KCNA.
“The more the U.S. persists in its anachronistic and malicious hostile acts against the DPRK through the intensified collaboration with its satellite countries, the more distrust and hostility will be piled up between the DPRK and the U.S.,” the spokesperson added, using the initials of North Korea’s official name.
(Reporting by Ju-min Park; Additional reporting by Heejin KimEditing by Cynthia Osterman, Lincoln Feast, Ed Davies.)
