North Korean Leader Visits ‘Seoul’ Tank Unit

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un supervised Monday a tank exercise and encouraged his armored forces to sharpen war preparations in the face of growing tensions with South Korea.
Jeon Ha Gyu, spokesperson of South Korea’s Defense Ministry, said the South Korean and US militaries were closely monitoring North Korean military activities but did not provide a specific assessment of the details reported by North Korean state media.
Kim earlier this month supervised a training competition between his military’s tank units, which was won by the 105th Division. The event on March 13 also featured a new North Korean battle tank meant to underscore Kim’s efforts to strengthen his conventional military capabilities along with his arsenal of missiles.
Last week, North Korea conducted a live-fire drill of large-size multiple rocket launchers designed to target Seoul and also claimed a successful engine test in its efforts to build a new intermediate-range hypersonic missile, which would be aimed at remote US targets in the Pacific, including the military hub of Guam.
Meanwhile, North Korea said Monday that Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has proposed a summit with Kim, as the North urged Japan to show sincerity toward improving bilateral ties and realizing their countries’ first summit in about 20 years.
In the statement carried by state media, Kim’s sister and senior official, Kim Yo Jong, said Kishida used an unspecified channel to convey his position that he wants to meet Kim in person at an early date.
Kim Yo Jong said there will be no breakthrough in North Korea-Japan relations as long as Kishida’s government raises the issue of Japanese citizens abducted to North Korea in past decades and opposes what she described as the North’s “exercise of sovereign rights,” apparently referring to the North’s weapons testing activities.