NKorean TV: Young Kim Vowed War in 2009
North Korea’s new leader vowed in 2009 to wage war if the country’s enemies shot down its long-range rocket, footage aired on state television showed Sunday in the first official word of his role in military operations before his father’s death.
The documentary is the second in a week seeking to highlight Kim Jong Un’s experience in leading North Korea’s 1.2 million-strong military and was aimed at showing that he was in charge of the armed forces long before his father, former leader Kim Jong Il, died of a heart attack last month.
The son, who is in his late 20s, has moved swiftly into the role of “supreme leader” of the people, the ruling Workers’ Party and the military despite questions abroad about how easily he could assume power with only a few years of grooming behind him. Kim Jong Il, in contrast, had 20 years of training when his father, North Korea founder Kim Il Sung, died of a heart attack in 1994.
Where a North Korea under Kim Jong Un is headed is deemed crucial because the country is locked in a long-running standoff over its nuclear ambitions and is grappling with chronic food shortages. North Korea has tested two atomic devices and is believed to be working toward mounting a bomb on a missile capable of reaching the U.S. After years of acrimony, Pyongyang and Washington had begun discussions about food aid and how to restart nuclear disarmament talks that were suspended when Kim died last month. The U.S. and North Korea fought on opposite sides of the 1950-53 Korean War, and do not have formal diplomatic relations.