Pyongyang: North Korea staged a huge military parade on Sunday to mark its 70th anniversary as a nation but held back from showing the Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM). Nearly half of the parade was devoted to civilian efforts to build the domestic economy.

Troops, artillery and tanks made their way past leader Kim Jong-un in the centre of Pyongyang, but the largest missiles shown were short-range battlefield devices, an AFP reporter on scene witnessed.

The strong emphasis on the economy underscores leader Kim Jong-un's new strategy of putting economic development front and center. Kim attended the morning parade but did not address the assembled crowd, which included the head of the Chinese Parliament and high-level delegations from countries that have friendly ties with the North.

Senior statesman Kim Yong Nam, the head of North Korea's Parliament, set the relatively softer tone for the event with an opening speech that emphasized the economic goals of the regime, not its nuclear might.

After a truncated parade featuring tanks, fewer than the usual number of missiles and lots of goose-stepping units from all branches of the military, along with some students and others, the focus switched to civilian groups, ranging from nurses to construction workers, many with colorful floats beside them.

Although North Korea stages military parades almost every year, and held one just before the Olympics began in South Korea in February this year, Sunday's parade came at a particularly sensitive time.

Kim's effort to ease tensions with President Donald Trump have stalled since their June summit in Singapore. Both sides are now insisting on a different starting point. Washington wants Kim to commit to denuclearisation first, but Pyongyang wants its security guaranteed and a peace agreement formally ending the Korean War.

With tensions once again on the rise, a parade featuring the very missiles that so unnerved Trump last year, and led to a dangerous volley of insults from both leaders, could be seen as a deliberate provocation.

The North displayed its latest missilery in the February parade, however, and Washington hardly batted an eye. Soon after the Sunday celebrations end, Kim will once again meet in Pyongyang with South Korean president Moon Jae-in to discuss ways to break the impasse over his nuclear weapons.

The "new line" of putting economic development first has been Kim's top priority this year. He claims to have perfected his nuclear arsenal enough to deter US aggression and devote his resources to raising the nation's standard of living.

This year's celebrations also mark the revival of North Korea's iconic mass games after a five-year hiatus. The mass games involve tens of thousands of people holding up placards or dancing in precise unison and are intended to be a display of national unity. This year's spectacle — tickets start at just over $100 and go up to more than $800 per seat — also has a strong economic theme.

The economy was also a big part of a concert held on the eve of the anniversary for foreign dignitaries and a large foreign media contingent allowed in for the events.</s>Actor Gerard Depardieu has been spotted in North Korea as the country celebrates the 70th anniversary of its founding.

The 69-year-old French-born actor, who took Russian citizenship in 2013,was seen in the lobby of a hotel in Pyongyang on Friday.

Depardieu was spotted among a crowd of spectators enjoying the country's celebrations.

North Korea staged a military parade on Sunday with thousands gathering in Kim Il Sung square for the festivites.

It's not known whether the Green Card actor was there as a guest or to take part in the celebrations.

Line upon line of marching soldiers and columns of tanks shook the ground during the parade before giving way to chanting crowds waving flags and flowers as they passed a review stand.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sat high above the crowds with a special envoy from China, as well as other visiting dignitaries from abroad.

Kim told the envoy, Chinese parliament chief Li Zhanshu, that North Korea was focusing on economic development and hopes to learn from China's experience in this regard, state television reported.

Unlike in previous years, there were no inter-continental missiles on display. And there were no nuclear tests to mark the holiday, as has happened in each of the last two years, following North Korea's commitment to denuclearisation.

North Korea routinely uses major holidays to showcase its military capabilities and the latest developments in missile technology.

But that has lessened this year, underlining Kim's stated aim for denuclearising the Korean peninsula and his recent meetings with South Korean President Moon Jae-in and summits with Trump in Singapore and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing and Dalian.

The theme for the celebrations this year was economic development and unifying the Korean peninsula, divided since World War Two.

A huge float was decorated with a modern train, solar panels, wind power plants and dams, under a slogan of "All our might to build economy!", as North Korean men in construction work wear marched.

Kim Yong-nam, North Korea's titular head of state, gave a speech at the parade in which he said the country had achieved status as a military power, and would now pursue efforts to strengthen its economy.

Floats on unification also passed by a throng of North Koreans waving unified Korea flags.

"All Koreans should join forces to accomplish unification in our generation. Unification is the only way Koreans can survive," said an editorial in North Korea's party newspaper Rodong Sinmun.

Kim Jong-un and his South Korean counterpart Moon will meet in Pyongyang on September 18 for the third time this year and discuss "practical measures" towards denuclearisation, officials in Seoul have said.</s>Donald Trump's press secretary Sarah Sanders said the US president had received a "very warm, very positive letter" from Kim.

She told reporters that a military parade in Pyongyang on Sunday was a sign of progress in talks on denuclearisation because it did not feature any long-range nuclear missiles.

The White House is now preparing for a possible second crunch summit between the two leaders.

The pair met in June this year, the first such meeting between serving US and North Korean leaders.

This is a breaking story, more to follow...</s>SEOUL – North Korea held a military parade to celebrate the 70th anniversary of its founding on Sunday but refrained from displaying its long-range intercontinental ballistic missiles or mentioning its nuclear program amidst a period of diplomatic negotiations with the United States and South Korea.

In previous years, the parade has been a showcase for Pyongyang’s latest weapons technology, but this year the event had a less bellicose tone, according to reports from foreign journalists invited to cover it.

Thousands of goose-stepping troops marched through Pyongyang’s Kim Il Sung Square before crowds waving brightly colored plastic bouquets of flowers, according to the Associated Press. Tanks and shorter-range weapons were on display, but none of the long-range missiles with the capacity to strike targets in the continental U.S. were seen.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was on hand but did not address the crowd. He reviewed the procession from a balcony over Kim Il Sung Square alongside senior officials and foreign envoys including Li Zhanshu, a member of China’s Politburo Standing Committee who is number three in Beijing’s power hierarchy.

Kim Yong Nam, head of North Korea’s parliament, delivered a speech that focused mainly on economic development, according to CNN.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has accelerated economic reforms since coming to power in 2011, and this year, in particular, he has emphasized developing North Korea’s economy. In April, he announced that North Korea would be ending its policy of dual-track development of both nuclear weapons and economic growth and instead would “focus all of its energy on building a socialist economy.”

Other foreign dignitaries on hand included Valentina Matvienko, the speaker of Russia’s upper house of parliament, who told the Russian news agency RIA that Kim Jong Un confirmed his intention to visit Russia. The North Korean leader “wants peace,” she was quoted as saying.

Also viewing the parade was French actor Gerard Depardieu, who was spotted by journalists from the Agence France-Presse news agency.

The parade comes as North Korea and the United States appear to be at an impasse over negotiations concerning North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. A June summit in Singapore between Kim Jong Un and President Trump produced an agreement pledging "to work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula," but failed to provide a roadmap for how that might work.

North Korea wants a peace declaration officially ending the Korean War and relief from punishing international sanctions but the United States has held firm on its demands for complete denuclearization first. Hostilities in the Korean War ended in 1953 with an armistice after three years of brutal conflict that claimed the lives of nearly 3 million soldiers and civilians, including more than 36,000 Americans, but no peace treaty has been signed.

“We believe that denuclearization has to take place before we get to other parts,” State Department Spokeswoman Heather Nauert told reporters on Wednesday.

Nevertheless, Kim Jong Un expressed "unwavering trust for President Trump" and said that he wants to achieve the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula before the end of Trump’s first term, according to South Korean special envoy Chung Eun-yong after a meeting with Kim in Pyongyang.

Trump thanked Kim for his sentiment on Twitter, adding: “We will get it done together!”

On Saturday, the State Department confirmed that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo received a personal letter from Kim for Trump, which the president had said he believes will be "positive" in tone.

Seoul has also been strongly pushing for closer diplomatic and economic ties with Pyongyang, and South Korean President Moon Jae-in will be meeting Kim Jong Un for a third time on September 18-20. President Moon said on Friday that he will be seeking “irrevocable progress” in efforts to rid North Korea of its nuclear weapons by the end of this year at the summit, which will be held in Pyongyang.

North Korea was also scheduled to hold its first Mass Games spectacle in five years on Sunday. The event in the past has a with enormous choreographed propaganda displays and large-scale performances of up to 100,000 synchronized gymnasts and dancers.</s>A parade designed to show off North Korea's military strength marked the country's 70th anniversary. Intercontinental ballistic missiles were missing from the display, according to reports. This comes after Korean leader Kim Jong-un's talks with President Trump.</s>SEOUL, South Korea — Columns of goose-stepping soldiers and artillery vehicles rolled through a main plaza in Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea, on Sunday, as the country celebrated the 70th anniversary of its founding with a large military parade notable for one conspicuous absence: its long-range ballistic missiles.

The North’s intercontinental ballistic missiles, including its Hwasong-14 and Hwasong-15, have been a main feature of its recent military parades, including one in February, and they have provoked President Trump to the extent that he has threatened military action. Their absence in Sunday’s parade is an encouraging signal for Washington, which has been urging the North’s leader, Kim Jong-un, to ease tensions and focus on diplomacy aimed at ending his country’s nuclear weapons program.

For weeks, outside analysts had been scrutinizing satellite imagery of North Korea’s preparations for Sunday’s festivities. If the North decided not to showcase its ICBMs, they said, it could be counted as a sign that North Korea was serious about its negotiations with Washington.

During the two-hour parade, North Korea displayed conventional weaponry, such as tanks, artillery pieces and multiple-rocket launchers, but it neither rolled out its ICBMs nor made direct references to its growing nuclear weapons capabilities, as it often did in past parades.</s>As North Korea celebrates its 70th anniversary with a lavish military parade, one conspicuous absence in the form of its national arsenal was notable, the BBC reports. Whereas in years past the yearly parade would feature not only tanks and infantrymen — as were present at this year’s march — but also ICBMs, said missiles remained absent from the festivities conducted in Pyongyang today.

As CNN reports, it appears that Kim Jong Un has decided to refrain from the display of intercontinental ballistic missiles which routinely roll their way past the North Korean leader’s vantage point during the annual parade. The most likely motive behind such a move is to downplay any chance of antagonizing President Trump, given that the ICBMs are the only conveyance capable of potentially delivering a payload to most of the continental United States.

ABC correspondent Martha Raddatz — perhaps most famous with regards to President Trump inasmuch as she inserted herself into the second presidential debate conducted between him and Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton — spoke to the nature of the anniversary celebrations, reporting from the North Korean capitol.

“It is a massive spectacle, precision marching bands, fireworks, balloons and planes forming a 70 in the sky. The guest of honor, Kim Jong Un, who was just above us in the square named after his grandfather. Today, presiding over an adoring crowd and an incredible display of North Korea’s military… But it wasn’t what was included in today’s parade that got everyone’s attention — it was what was left out. There were tanks and artillery, but no display of intercontinental ballistic missiles. Last February, before the Singapore Summit, ICBMs — the kind believed capable of reaching the U.S. with a nuclear warhead — were rolled proudly past Kim. Today, nothing even remotely threatening to the U.S. mainland.”

The news comes on the heels of a revelation that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, often perceived to be a point man in the ongoing negotiations surrounding the requested denuclearization of North Korea and the attendant peace talks, was en route back to Washington with a private letter from Kim Jong Un to Donald Trump. According to TIME, it is unclear as to whether or not the letter has been delivered as yet, though it seems eminently likely that President Trump, by now, has been made aware of its contents.

The letter from North Korea comes in response to a letter passed along via Mike Pompeo to North Korea’s foreign minister during the recent Association of Southeast Asian Nations meeting held early in August, CNN reports.

This correspondence is seen as an encouraging sign by both those hoping for a peaceful resolution to the North Korean question as well as by the Trump administration. The news comes on the heels of a spirited statement made by a South Korean envoy that Kim Jong Un had told him personally that North Korea would like to see denuclearization by the end of Trump’s current term of office, according to The New York Times.</s>North Korea’s national spectacle over the weekend featured a performance of the popular Chinese folk song “Love My China” and pleased President Trump by not parading nuclear missiles, showing that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is no diplomatic dunce

By including the song and literally holding hands with a top Chinese official during a weekend of celebrations marking the 70th anniversary of North Korea’s foundation, a smiling Kim sent a clear message of comradely friendship to Beijing.

And by excluding nuclear-related hardware from a huge parade held Sunday, the young North Korean leader also sent a message that Trump immediately interpreted as “a big and very positive statement” on denuclearization.

“Kim Jong Un managed to put on a great show, and make progress on two of his most important foreign policy goals at the same time,” said Zhao Tong, a fellow at the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy in Beijing. Kim’s goals are boosting an anemic economy while holding on to his nuclear program for as long as possible.

“North Korea has great faith in the darkness of humanity. So Kim Jong Un is making good use of the growing mistrust and rivalry between the U.S. and a rising China,” he said.

Kim knows that Beijing is worried he’s getting too close to Trump, while Washington continues to worry that China is acting as a spoiler.

A multiplayer game of chess is now being played in northeast Asia, revolving around North Korea. South Korea’s pro-engagement President Moon Jae-in, who will travel to Pyongyang next week, is trying to keep the momentum going in the diplomatic process he kicked off at the beginning of the year. Japan’s conservative government, meanwhile, is poised to return to a harder line if — or when, as it would say — the current denuclearization effort falls through.

Kim is trying to play the parties off against each other, said John Delury, a China specialist at Yonsei University in Seoul. “When Kim makes a move like this, it gives him a lot of leverage over Seoul and Washington,” he said.

[North Korea is celebrating its birthday with 100,000 people doing synchronized gymnastics ]

Despite all the ups and downs since their June meeting, Trump is hoping Kim will make good on their agreement to work toward the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, a hope made apparent in his Sunday tweets thanking “Chairman Kim.”

But he is also holding China’s feet to the flames to make it happen by linking the North Korean problem with the trade war festering between Beijing and Washington. Trump has cited China’s role in the North Korea as part of the rationale for imposing punishing tariffs on China.

“Always blaming China for negatively influencing North Korea’s stance,” Hu Xijin, editor in chief of the Global Times, Beijing’s main foreign affairs newspaper, said Monday when retweeting the American president. “Now North Korea behaves better, shouldn’t China be given credit?

For his part, Chinese President Xi Jinping, who has met Kim three times this year, appears to want to return to an equilibrium where North Korea is quiet and he can concentrate on expanding China’s international economic influence.

That’s where China’s and North Korea’s interests collide, however, analysts say.

Kim, having achieved a credible nuclear program, is now moving on to the second track in the two-track strategy he laid out in 2013: economic development. The economy was front and center at the weekend’s celebrations, with parade floats extolling “economic construction” and scientific advancement.

Xi did not attend the celebrations, perhaps to avoid antagonizing Trump during a tense period in the trade war, but instead sent a close aide as a special representative. Li Zhanshu, the third-ranking official in China’s Communist Party, was greeted with cheering crowds when he arrived in Pyongyang and given the place of honor at Sunday’s parade.

He also delivered a warm letter from Xi to Kim. “Comrade chairman” Kim had achieved important results in “social and economic development,” Xi wrote. “I’m really pleased to see all this,” Xi said, adding that he was “willing to work hand in hand” with Kim to “benefit both countries.”

The show of unity continued Monday. Communist Party ties have been “totally restored,” the Global Times declared.

[North Korea celebrates 70th birthday with military parade — but no ICBMs ]

The big question now is what happens with the sanctions imposed last year, both unilaterally and through the United Nations, as part of Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign.

As Trump threatened military action against North Korea over its nuclear tests and numerous missile launches, China overcame its usual reluctance to implement international sanctions against North Korea and cracked down on border trade like never before.

Now, with diplomatic talks underway, albeit in fits and starts, China has no need to continue blocking North Korean exports of seafood, garments and coal. 



“China’s positions that, because North Korea has started to participate in denuclearization negotiations with a positive attitude, the international community should ease some sanctions on North Korea,” said Xuan Dongri, director of Institute of Northeast Asia Studies at Yanbian University, near the Chinese border with North Korea.



The United States should agree to ease sanctions to “establish a relationship of trust,” he said.

[North Korea’s Kim says he hopes for denuclearization during Trump’s presidency ]

Reports from the border suggest that trade has been returning this year, although it is not appearing in official statistics. That would make sense, experts said, given that China has never believed that sanctions are the right way to deal with North Korea anyway.

Regardless, relations between Beijing and Pyongyang will continue to improve if North Korea made progress on denuclearization, said Jin Qiangyi, a North Korea expert also at Yanbian University.

“This is not just a political issue, it’s crucial for the economic ties between North Korea and the three northeastern provinces of China,” he said, referring to a region with a large ethnic Korean population and an economy reliant on trade with North Korea.

But there can be no large-scale economic cooperation between China and North Korea until the sanctions were lifted, Jin said.

Indeed, said Adam Cathcart, an expert on Chinese-North Korean relations at Leeds University, for all the effusive language in the Chinese press, there were no indications that Xi was going to help Kim with the economic development he now desperately needs if he is going to adhere to his promise to improve the standard of living. There has been no mention of investment or any other rewards for North Korea’s turn away from provocations and toward diplomacy.

“China is not turning on the economic taps,” Cathcart said. “There’s still a long way to go there.”

North Korea and U.S. return to negotiating table over Korean War remains

Signs that North Korea is planning something big for September

U.S. companies in China brace for more trade-war pain

Today’s coverage from Post correspondents around the world

Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news</s>US President Donald Trump saluted North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Sunday for holding a massive military parade “without the customary display of nuclear missiles” to celebrate his country’s 70th anniversary.

“This is a big and very positive statement from North Korea. Thank you To Chairman Kim. We will both prove everyone wrong!” he tweeted.

“There is nothing like good dialogue from two people that like each other! Much better than before I took office.” The tweet included a quote that said experts believe the missiles were cut from the parade to show Trump North Korea’s commitment to denuclearizing.

“Theme was peace and economic development,” the US president said.

Trump said on Friday he was expecting a letter from Kim. He has since appeared upbeat about the state of relations.

The two leaders met in June in Singapore, ending a tense months-long standoff over the North’s missile and nuclear tests.

The North Korean leader pledged to work toward the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, following Washington’s demands for a “final, fully verified denuclearization of North Korea.” But the momentum lagged after the summit, and late last month Secretary of State Mike Pompeo abruptly canceled a scheduled trip to North Korea, citing a lack of progress on denuclearisation.</s>North Korea stages huge military parade on its 70th anniversary, holds back on advanced missiles

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — North Korea stages huge military parade on its 70th anniversary, holds back on advanced missiles.
North Korea celebrates its 70th anniversary with a military parade in Pyongyang with the absence of its international ballistic missiles.