Kim Jong Un has staged a very North Korean take on Bring Your Daughter to Work Day with a sprawling military parade that put his leather-clad teenage daughter center stage.
The dinky despot, believed to be in his early forties, brought Kim Ju Ae, thought to be 13 or 14, to observe the Ninth Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea on Thursday in Pyongyang. The pair donned matching outfits, opting for ultra-sleek leather trench coats, tied at the waist.
The North Korean leader proudly pointed out his sophisticated war machines and formations of loyal soldiers to his daughter, who is tipped to replace him in the coming years. Her presence with him on the podium is evidence for this, according to Koh Yu-hwan, professor emeritus at Dongguk University in Seoul.
“Kim intends to make her his successor,” the professor told the Financial Times. “If you look at his recent public appearances, he keeps accompanying his daughter, and she is treated as the second most important person.”
The military parade, which included 14,000 soldiers and a fireworks display, did not showcase nuclear weapons, though Kim used his speech to urge U.S. President Donald Trump to leave the county’s nukes alone and pledged to “increase the number of nuclear weapons.”
Leaving the door open to co-operation with Washington, D.C., Kim said any talks hinge on the U.S. “withdrawing its policy of confrontation by respecting our country’s current status.”
The status Kim referred to is concerning the country’s existing nuclear stockpile, thought to be about 50 warheads, with the ingredients to produce another 40.
The future state of U.S.-North Korea relations “depends entirely on the U.S. attitude,” Kim added. “Whether it’s peaceful coexistence or permanent confrontation, we are ready for either, and the choice is not ours to make.”
Kim met Trump on three occasions during the U.S. president’s first term and has repeatedly signaled interest in meeting again following their most recent summit in Hanoi in 2019.
Analysts have floated the prospect of another Trump-Kim summit as soon as April, when Trump is expected to travel to China.
Trump has previously boasted of his “great relationship” with the tyrant, but it is unclear whether he is willing to allow Pyongyang to have a nuclear arsenal, given that his administration is mulling over an operation in Iran to eradicate its nuclear capabilities.
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