N Korea tones down military parade, avoiding Trump’s ire

Bloomberg

Kim Jong-un presided over a tempered military parade on Sunday, in the latest sign that he wants to revive stalled nuclear talks with the US as he pushes for North Korea to rejoin the
international community.
Kim marked the 70th anniversary of his grandfather’s regime without showing off provocative hardware such as long-range ballistic missiles that would likely have irked President Donald Trump, who said in June that North Korea is “no longer a nuclear threat.”
In the past, North Korea has used such pageants to show off its most advanced weapons including intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of striking the US.
But on Sunday, nearly half of the military parade was devoted to showcasing civilian efforts to build the country’s economy, the Associated Press reported. Foreign journalists in the North Korean capital posted Twitter photos showing parade floats with large slogans pushing economic development.
The slogans—one of which said “all efforts on economy”— are in line with Kim’s new political priority outlined earlier this year before he met President Trump. In April, Kim said economic development would be the country’s focus as he visited farms, construction sites and various factories prodding industrial growth.
Kim is emphasizing peace and the economy as a way to “create the momentum in the US-North Korea relations and to declare the (Korean) war is over,” said Lee Ho-ryung, chief of North Korean studies at the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses.
The parade came at a delicate time, as Kim presses for a peace declaration to formally end the war North Korea and China fought against US-led forces from 1950-53. Kim got to the bargaining table in part by vowing not to resume nuclear tests, and he could use peace talks to legitimise his regime and get international sanctions relaxed.
The US’s newly appointed special representative for North Korea, former Ford Motor Co. executive Steve Biegun, was due to arrive in the region on Monday. And South Korean President Moon Jae-in was slated to travel to Pyongyang on September 18 for the first such trip in 11 years.
The parties are struggling to implement a 1-1/2 page document signed by Trump and Kim in June at the first-ever summit between sitting US and North Korean leaders. The two leaders pledged to “work towards complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula” without setting a timetable or explaining what that means.
Analysts closely watched for pronouncements by Kim that could suggest a new challenge to the US or a willingness to compromise. But several media reports from Pyongyang said Kim attended the parade but did not address the assembled crowd.

Bigger Parade
North Korea’s state-run media published what it said was an “indictment” by its South Korean wing, denouncing US forces on the peninsula and calling their withdrawal “the irresistible trend of the times.” The statement contrasted with Kim’s remarks to visiting South Korean envoys on Wednesday, when he said that declaring peace wouldn’t require American troops to leave.
In April 2017, as tensions with Trump were escalating, Kim paraded a series of missile canisters through Kim Il Sung Square that foreshadowed his later test of a rocket capable of reaching Washington. A February event, which came amid the first diplomatic breakthroughs between the two sides, was much smaller and featured no obvious new threats to the US.