Seoul, Apr 28: North Korea's supreme leader Kim Jong-Il resumed inspections of army units this week as tensions rose over the Stalinist country's reported assertion that it has nuclear weapons. The inspection followed talks last week between North Korea, the United States and China, and coincided with inter-Korean ministerial talks that began yesterday in Pyongyang.
Kim visited a military unit along the border with South Korea and watched soldiers in training, according to North Korea’s official news agency. “He was greatly satisfied to see all the servicemen trained as combatants fully prepared politically and ideologically and in military technique to repulse any surprise attack of the enemy at one stroke," said the report.
"Our party and people are highly proud of having such a matchless army," Kim was quoted as saying.
He praised soldiers for showing their determination "to become human bombs... And wipe out any invaders at one stroke," the agency report said. Kim, 61, has made frequent morale-boosting trips to army units since the nuclear crisis erupted in October last year.
Analysts say Kim was focusing on developments in Iraq and busily plotting his next move in the nuclear standoff amid fears that North Korea could be Washington's next target after the fall of Saddam Hussein.
North Korea has insisted that the only way to avoid the fate of Iraq, also part of George W Bush's "axis of evil", is to build up its military. Bureau Report