Kim Jong-un flaunts ‘global-level’ weapon production capabilities

Seoul, May 13 (EFE).- North Korean leader Kim Jong-un visited weapons factories this weekend, state media reported Monday, and spoke of the country’s ability to produce at a global capacity, as evidence increases that Pyongyang is supplying large quantities of weapons to Moscow for use in Ukraine.

Kim visited a plant that makes sniper rifles, one of which he used for target practice. He was also at a factory that allegedly produces motorized launchers for North Korea’s new multiple-launch rocket system with 240-millimeter projectiles, according to an article and dozens of photographs published by state news agency KCNA.

He also personally drove one of the shuttles of this system, which the regime tested – for the third time this year – Friday before announcing he would begin deploying it with his artillery units this year.

During the visits to the factories, the North Korean leader spoke about automation, rationalizing and modernizing production processes and the importance of mass manufacturing and highlighted that North Korean arms plants now have «global-level technical capabilities.»

«The considerable global-level advancement achieved by the war industry these days is the product of the integrity and vitality of the Party’s strategy for the economic development of the national defense industry,» Kim said, according to KCNA.

Kim «urged all defense industrial enterprises under the Second Economic Commission to launch a campaign to establish a culture of life and production and to continue to establish and improve the exemplary culture of the new century for the working class of the munitions industry.»

The Second Economic Commission is a key body in North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction development programs and on which depends a «national defense industrial enterprise» whose founding the regime recently announced.

Analysts’ eyes are on this new defense industry entity at a time when Pyongyang continues to supply Moscow with containers of weapons including artillery and short-range ballistic missiles for use in Ukraine. It comes amid signs that the armed wing of Hamas or the Tehran regime have also obtained North Korean weapons. EFE

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