Via – Reuters

SEOUL, Oct 16 (Reuters) – Aides to Kim Jong Un are convinced the North Korean leader plans “a great operation”, state media said on Wednesday in a report that included lavish descriptions and images of the leader riding a white horse up North Korea’s most sacred mountain.

In the photos released by state news agency KCNA, Kim is seen riding alone on a large white horse through snowy fields and woods on Mt Paektu, the spiritual homeland of the Kim dynasty.

“His march on horseback in Mt Paektu is a great event of weighty importance in the history of the Korean revolution,” KCNA said.

“Having witnessed the great moments of his thinking atop Mt Paektu, all the officials accompanying him were convinced with overflowing emotion and joy that there will be a great operation to strike the world with wonder again and make a step forward in the Korean revolution.”

It was unclear what the operation might involve, but Kim has often made trips to the sacred mountain at times of major policy endeavours

Analysts say the symbolism underscores North Korea standing up to international sanctions and pressure over its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programmes.

“This is a statement, symbolic of defiance,” said Joshua Pollack, a North Korea expert at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California. “The pursuit of sanctions relief is over. Nothing is made explicit here, but it starts to set new expectations about the coming course of policy for 2020.”

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