Show caption North Korean leader Kim Jong-un rides a horse in the snow on Mount Paektu in this image released by North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency. Photograph: KCNA/Reuters Kim Jong-un Kim Jong-un jockeys for attention with horse ride up sacred mountain North Korean leader’s heavily publicised trip up Mount Paektu on white horse could be sign of a big decision Reuters Wed 16 Oct 2019 05.45 BST Share on Facebook

Share on Twitter

Share via Email 11 months old

Kim Jong-un is planning “a great operation to strike the world with wonder”, North Korean state media has said, after he found inspiration during a heavily publicised horse ride to the top of the nation’s most sacred mountain.

In a series of photos released by state news agency KCNA, Kim is seen riding a large white horse through snowy fields and woods on Mount 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.

Kim Jong-un heads through the forest. Photograph: KCNA/EPA

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.”

In late 2017, Kim visited Mount Paektu days after North Korea launched its largest intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), and weeks before he made a key New Year speech in which he opened the door to engagement with South Korea.

Last year, Kim took South Korean president Moon Jae-in to the top of the mountain as part of a historic summit.

Kim Jong-un gets up some speed on Mount Paektu. Photograph: 朝鮮通信社/AP

Since then, relations have cooled and Kim has said he will wait only until the end of the year for the US to soften its stance in denuclearisation negotiations before North Korea pursues an unspecified new path forward.

Further afield, Kim’s latest trip sparked a raft of comparisons to western books, movies and TV series, including Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia.

Winter Is Coming. And there is a King In The North pic.twitter.com/gYjgBZMO8H — Josh Smith (@joshjonsmith) October 15, 2019

Several experts said much of the rhetoric in the KCNA report revolves around the economy, and they suspect North Korea may soon conduct a space launch. That would enable the North to show its economic and technological power in a less provocative way than by testing an ICBM.