North Korean leader Kim Jong Un made his first appearance without a cane since emerging from a six-week seclusion that prompted speculation about his health and grip on power.
This undated picture released by North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency on May 28, 2013 shows North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un, right, inspecting the August 25 Fishery Station under the Korean People’s Army Unit 313.
Kim clapped his hands and walked alongside hundreds of troops applauding him in photos released today by the Rodong Sinmun newspaper, run by the ruling Workers’ Party. He attended a meeting of battalion commanders and political instructors yesterday in Pyongyang, the paper said.
“The photo dispels the lingering sense of uncertainty that was associated with the cane,” Yoo Ho Yeol, a professor of North Korea studies at Korea University based at Sejong in South Korea, said by phone. “He’s trying to show he can walk without a problem.”
Kim, who returned to the public gaze with the cane in mid-October, exercises dynastic control of the North’s 1.2 million troops and nuclear arms program. He recently ordered the shooting of about 10 senior party officials on charges including graft and watching South Korean soap operas, South Korean lawmaker Shin Kyoung Min said Oct. 29, citing a briefing by the National Intelligence Service in Seoul.
Kim, believed to be around 30, had a cyst removed from his right ankle in September or October, according to Lim Dae Sung, a secretary to South Korean lawmaker Lee Cheol Woo, who also attended the intelligence briefing.
The leader took power in late 2011 after his father Kim Jong Il died. North Korea has since conducted its third nuclear test and launched a long-range rocket that put a satellite in orbit. The U.S. and South Korea say the launch was a test of ballistic missile technology banned under United Nations Security Council resolutions.