North Korea’s Kim Jong Un inspects new missile production line

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has inspected a new missile production line and missile-manufacturing automation process, according to state media.

His visit on Sunday to the missile production line came ahead of a planned trip to Beijing to attend a military parade along with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

North Korea is under heavy international sanctions imposed over its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programmes, which were developed in violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions.

Experts and international officials say the sanctions have lost much of their bite amid growing economic, military and political support from Russia and China.

Kim said that the modernised production process would help increase major missile units’ combat readiness, the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said on Monday.

North Korea has sent soldiers, artillery ammunition and missiles to Russia to support Moscow in its war against Ukraine.

North Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs also criticised US cooperation with Japan and South Korea, singling out a recent trilateral joint statement that warned of cybersecurity threats from Pyongyang.

The ministry “strongly denounces and rejects” the United States, Japan and South Korea for using cyberspace as a “theatre of geopolitical confrontation and hostile propaganda”, a spokesperson said in a statement carried by KCNA.

“The more the US persists in its anachronistic and malicious hostile acts against the DPRK through the intensified collaboration with its satellite countries, the more distrust and hostility will be piled up between the DPRK and the US,” the spokesperson added, using the initials of North Korea’s official name.