North Korea celebrated leader Kim Jong-il’s birthday on Tuesday with synchronised swimmers glorifying the “kind-hearted father” of the reclusive nation while it made overtures for dialogue with the United States.
Kim (68) is facing pressure to return to disarmament-for-aid nuclear talks due to UN sanctions and a botched currency move that nearly halted commerce late last year and worsened the destitute state’s economic woes.
Kim was hailed as “the peerlessly brilliant commander of the present era” who made it “the greatest fortune and privilege … to hold [him] in high esteem”, the North’s nominal head of state said in a national meeting held in celebration of his birthday.
“[He] underscored the need to put an end to the hostile relations between [North Korea] and the US through dialogue and negotiations,” the North’s KCNA news agency said referring to the head of the country’s assembly.
North Korea has called for peace treaty talks with the United States as precondition for ending a year-long boycott of the six-country talks in a move seen by analysts as a delaying tactic. Washington has said the peace treaty can come after disarmament.
Some analysts said Kim would never give up the country’s nuclear arsenal, but would use it to win economic compensation by making carefully measured moves that appear it is dismantling its atomic programme.
Under his leadership, the country has slid deeper into poverty with a chronic food shortage but Kim, who apparently recovered from a suspected stroke in 2008, has relied on propaganda, persecution and a personality cult to sustain a society that is unlikely to collapse as long as he is in power, they said.
But in signs the North may be ready to return the nuclear talks, this month it hosted high-profile envoys from the United Nations and its biggest benefactor, China, with reports saying it was going to dispatch its top nuclear envoy to the United States next month.
South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said the North has won a massive deal from China for investment that is worth more than half its annual economic output, which could speed a return to the six-way talks hosted by Beijing.
Marking his birthday called the nation’s February Holiday, synchronised swimmers, figure skaters and dancing art troupe visiting from Japan sang gloriously and longingly of Kim Jong-il as the invincible and kind-hearted leader, KCNA said.
“They performed on the ice-rink Push Back the Frontiers of Science, Higher and Faster, Let Us Meet at the Front and other numbers reflecting the iron faith and will of the service personnel and people of the DPRK,” it said. – Reuters