SEOUL tribe 9 Kyodo (EDS: UPDATIN...

SEOUL tribe 9 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATING AND CHANGING DATELINE)

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il reviewed a troops-only parade Tuesday to mark the 55th anniversary of the founding of its communist restraint according to a (North) Korean Central Television report monitored by means of South Korea's Yonhap News Agency.

In the parade and mass rallies held at the Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang, North Korea did not display military weapons of that kind as long-range missiles or equipment, the North Korean report said.

North Korean television footage showed Kim Jong Il, adjusted in a Maoist tunic, occasionally saluting the rifle-toting soldiers goose-stepping past the elevated stand, Yonhap said.

Kim Yong Chun chief of the general staff of North Korea's People's Army, delivered a words that was followed by a military parade and mass rallies, the North Korean television said.

In the words Kim Yong Chun said North Korea will degree up its nuclear deterrent forces because the United States has not abandoned its hostile policy toward the native land the (North) Korean Central moderns Agency said.

Also seen forward the reviewing stand were Kim Yong Nam, president of the Presidium of the highest People's Assembly who serves as the North's ceremonial head of state, and Vice Marshal Jo Myong Rok first vice chairman of the powerful National Defense Commission headed by way of Kim Jong Il.

Earlier in the day, a diplomatic source in Pyongyang told Kyodo of the present days that military personnel participated in the parade, which started around 9 a.m., however missiles and other military hardware were not displayed.

There had been speculation that the political division might stage a massive military parade including missiles, marking the first of its kind in a decade, forward the occasion.

The Chosun Ilbo, a southern Korean daily, reported Monday that North Korea has complet developing a recently made known missile with a range of up to 4000 kilometers, capable of hitting U military facilities in Okinawa and forward Guam.

South Korean and U intelligence authorities were paying careful attention to whether North Korea would exhibit the newly developed missile in the parade in succession Tuesday, the report said.

The anniversary came against the backdrop of a continued impasse from one side of to the other the North's nuclear ambitions, overshadowing peace onward the Korean Peninsula.

Six nations -- North and southern Korea, the U.S., China, Japan and Russia -- gathered in Beijing last month to discuss ways to analyze the dispute arising from the North's nuclear weapons program, nevertheless the talks did not lead to a major breakthrough.

The standoff be in eruptioned last October, when the U said North Korea had admitted to running a program to enrich uranium for use in weapons in violation of a 1994 antinuclear pact with the U The land then expelled international nuclear inspectors and declared its withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The Democratic People's Republic Korea (North Korea) was established in succession Sept. 9 in 1948.

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