The North’s state-run television KRT said Kim made the comments as he toured the Phyongchon revolutionary site.
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Sister of North Korean leader assumes senior position in ruling party – The younger sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has assumed a senior position in the ruling Workers’ Party.
Kim’s indication of progress in North Korea’s weapons development may be another bid to attract the attention of the United States and re-engage in diplomacy with Washington.
He is also reported to have said that North Korea “has to continue with actively developing its military industry”.
Earlier this year, it said it had successfully miniaturized a nuclear warhead to mount on a ballistic missile – a claim disputed by US and South Korean experts.
Jeffrey Lewis, of the California-based Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, agreed.
Kim Jong Un, who inherited power following the death of his father in late 2011, has attended the band’s concerts many times, with its repertoire in one early performance including the theme song from the movie “Rocky” and Frank Sinatra’s “My Way”.
South Korean intelligence officials dismissed the H-bomb claim as grandstanding.
“Kim Jong Un has been quiet with the nuclear threat rhetoric, as it has been working as the ultimate obstacle (resulting in) sanctioning North Korea by the rest of the world”, said Jang.
In the past, the North Korean officials have made many unverified claims about their nuclear weapons. “We don’t have any information that North Korea has developed an H-bomb, “Yonhap News Agency quoted an unidentified intelligence official as saying”.
Speaking at a regular press briefing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said, “Such people-to-people exchanges in various forms are conducive to our mutual understanding and friendship”.
The 21 members of the band were reputedly handpicked by Kim Jong-un, reports Telegraph UK.
This makes it “more likely that they will conduct a test in the coming year”, he said.
Despite the underground tests, outside experts suspect the North is short of achieving the capability to put a nuclear warhead on a missile, although it has boasted it had succeeded in the miniaturisation of a weapon.
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Worldwide pressure on North Korea has been building since the publication of the UN Commission of Inquiry report in February 2014. “Their main aim is to demand the global community to recognize the country as a nuclear state, and to further stress they will not abandon the nuclear weapons”.
