Reuters, Pyongyang :Isolated North Korea marked the 70th anniversary of its ruling Workers’ Party on Saturday with a massive military parade overseen by leader Kim Jong Un, who said his country was ready to fight any war waged by the United States.Thousands of troops stood at attention under a blue autumn sky in Pyongyang’s main Kim Il Sung Square, named after Kim Jong Un’s grandfather and the founder of the nation, as Kim, appearing relaxed and confident, made his speech, leaning heavily on the lectern.The young leader was accompanied by senior Chinese Communist Party official Liu Yunshan, with whom he was seen speaking throughout the event and occasionally shared laughs, and flanked by senior North Korean party and military officials. “The party’s revolutionary armament means we are ready to fight any kind of war waged by the U.S. imperialists,” Kim said in a speech strikingly more forceful than previous public comments, praising the feats of past leaders and the ruling party.He made no direct mention of the country’s nuclear program, likely a conciliatory diplomatic gesture towards China, which hosted the now-defunct “six-party talks”, also involving the United States, on giving economic incentives to Pyongyang in return for scrapping its atomic ambitions. On Wednesday, a high-level U.S. military official said Washington believed North Korea had the capability to launch a nuclear weapon against the U.S. mainland and stood ready to defend against any such attacks.Kim’s speech was followed by troops marching in formation, first by a corps of soldiers dressed in the style of the revolutionary force that fought Japan during World War Two, and then a procession of military might rolling past the square. A battery of the North’s intercontinental ballistic missiles was the highlight of the weapons display, although they are not known to have been successfully tested.Impoverished North Korea and rich, democratic South Korea remain technically at war after their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a treaty. The North, slapped with U.N. and U.S. sanctions for its nuclear weapons and rocket programs, often threatens to destroy the South, and its major ally the United States, in a sea of flames.
