SEOUL (AP) – North Korean leader Kim Jong-un joined troops training on a new tank model and drove one himself, state media reported yesterday, as his rivals South Korea and the United States (US) wrapped up their annual military exercises.
It’s the third time Kim was reported to have observed military exercises since the start of the 11-day South Korean-US drills, which he views as rehearsals for an invasion.
That’s a less provocative option than missile tests. North Korea has intensified launches since 2022 and ramped up belligerent rhetoric this year. At the tank drills on Wednesday, Kim praised the country’s latest tank as “the world’s most powerful” and told his troops to bolster their “fighting spirits” and complete “preparations for war”, according to the official Korean Central News Agency.
The other two drills he inspected recently were dedicated to artillery firing and manoeuvring exercises.
The tank was first unveiled during a military parade in 2020, and its rolling during Wednesday’s drill indicates that it’s ready to be deployed, South Korean experts say.
Photos of the tank released by North Korea shows it has a launch tube for missiles, a weapons systems the former Soviet Union already operated in the 1970s. The new tank could pose a threat to South Korea, said Yang Uk, an analyst at Asan Institute for Policy Studies, but it remains to be seen whether it can be mass produced.
The North’s Defence Ministry last week threatened “responsible military activities” in reaction to the South Korea-US military drills, which involved a computer-simulated command post training and 48 kinds of field exercises, twice the number conducted last spring.
The US and South Korea have been expanding their training exercises in a tit-for-tat response to the North’s weapons testing spree.
