North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has led military drills and driven a new battle tank, which he said is “the most powerful in the world”, Asian media reported on Thursday.
Wednesday’s military drills were a simulated battle between tank units designed to simulate “real combat capabilities and make them familiarise themselves with combat methods for various tactical tasks”, the Korean Central News Agency reported.
Kim “expressed great satisfaction over the fact that the new-type main battle tank successfully demonstrated its very excellent striking power and maneuverability, displaying its amazing militant performance for the first time,” KCNA said.
The winner of the training battle was the 105th Armoured Division, which occupied Seoul during the Korean War. After the exercise, Kim sat behind the wheel of one of the new vehicles, which he said were “the most powerful tanks in the world”. Several pictures published by state media showed Kim’s helmeted head peering out of the cockpit.
The North Korean leader’s latest visit to the military facility came as the US and South Korea continued their massive Freedom Shield joint drills, which conclude Thursday.
The 11-day exercise is aimed at countering threats from the nuclear-armed North and includes 48 joint field drills, nearly double the number of exercises held last year.
On Thursday, US and South Korean troops conducted live-fire drills near the inter-Korean border, South Korea’s army said in a press release. The drills, which began last week, involved 300 troops and South Korean K1A2 tanks, K21 armoured vehicles and FA-50 fighter jets.
North Korea has regularly denounced the joint allied drills as a rehearsal for an invasion and has used them in the past as a pretext for its own missile tests.
