N. Korean leader continues military tours in New Year

SEOUL, Jan. 5 (Yonhap) -- North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has inspected an
artillery unit, the North's news agency said Monday, continuing a round of
military tours as he brought in the New Year.

Kim's first publicly reported activity of 2009 was a visit to a historic tank
division, a signal that he will continue to advance his "military-first" policy.
The official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said the reclusive leader visited
unit 1489 under the Artillery Command of the Korean People's Army and watched
soldiers conduct firing training.
The army "has grown to be the powerful revolutionary armed forces equipped with
all type modern offensive and defensive means," Kim was quoted by KCNA as telling
the unit. Characteristic of North Korean reports on the leader, no date was
given.
In a joint New Year's editorial printed in the nation's newspapers last Thursday,
North Korea affirmed its commitment to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula and
vowed to rebuild its ailing economy. It also renewed its call to prioritize the
military.
On Friday, the KCNA said Kim visited the Guard Seoul Ryu Kyong Su Tank Division
105, regarded by North Korea as the historic location where Kim's military-first
policy was inaugurated during a visit there with his late father and then North
Korean president Kim Il-sung in 1960.
In recent years Kim has chosen to visit industrial sites in his New Year tours.
With the exception of 2007, when he paid homage to the Kumsusan Memorial Palace
where his father's embalmed body lies, Kim has visited a machinery a plant, an
electronic library and a plant construction site at the beginning of every New
Year since 2005.
In its New Year's message, Pyongyang called the Seoul government the "fascist
rule of the sycophantic and treacherous conservative authorities."
It refrained from issuing its usual anti-U.S. tirade.
hkim@yna.co.kr
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