North Korean leader Kim Jong Un hit the town with his daughter Kim Ju Ae for a mass celebration in the heart of Pyongyang last night, just days after threatening to strike the United States with a nuclear missile.

The oppressive leader of the Hermit Kingdom was snapped attending a slew of dramatic events yesterday in the North Korean capital to commemorate the 79th anniversary of the day his grandfather Kim Il Sung founded the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK).

His beaming daughter in tow, Kim first visited the Central Cadres Training School of the WPK in the Kumsusan area of the capital where the pair were treated to a banquet and a stunning light show.

Hours later they piled into a luxury Russian Aurus limousine – one of many gifts bestowed upon Kim by Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this year – and were shuttled to Kim Il Sung Square in the heart of Pyongyang.

Ju Ae, who many analysts believe is being groomed as his heiress and future leader of North Korea, was seen accompanying her father as they were greeted by thousands of dancers from student and youth groups.

They delivered an intricate performance before their dynastic leader and his favourite child before an enormous fireworks show lit up the night sky. 

The impressive display, which Kim and Ju Ae took in with wide grins plastered across their faces, comes days after North Korea’s leader vowed his army would ‘without hesitation use all its attack capabilities against its enemies’, including nuclear weapons, should it ever clash with Western nations. 

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his daughter Kim Ju Ae attend a celebration of the 79th anniversary of the founding of the Workers’ Party of Korea in Pyongyang, North Korea, October 10, 2024

This picture taken on October 10, 2024 and released from North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) via KNS on October 11, 2024 shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (C) and his daughter Ju Ae arriving at the Central Cadres Training School of the Workers’ Party of Korea

A view of a performance in celebration of the 79th anniversary of the founding of the Workers’ Party of Korea in Pyongyang, North Korea, October 10, 2024

An evening gala of youth and students and fireworks display to celebrate the 79th founding anniversary of the Workers’ Party of Korea at Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang on October 10, 2024

People visit the statues of late North Korean leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il to pay their respects on the occasion of the 79th founding anniversary of the Workers’ Party of Korea at Mansu Hill in Pyongyang on October 10, 2024

An evening gala of youth and students and fireworks display to celebrate the 79th founding anniversary of the Workers’ Party of Korea at Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang on October 10, 2024

North Korean youth and students celebrate the 79th founding anniversary of the Workers’ Party of Korea at Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang, North Korea Thursday, Oct. 10, 2024

North Korea enjoyed a brief period of warmer relations with the West in the late 2010s when then-US President Donald Trump sought a rapprochement with the isolated state. 

Trump visited the region and held a historic meeting with Kim in the demilitarised zone separating the North from the South, and the dynastic leader engaged in a series of summits and talks with his southern counterparts and US diplomats. 

South Korea’s former president Moon Jae In recently revealed in his memoirs that Kim was upset by ‘global mistrust’ of his nation and was keen to begin a nuclear disarmament programme in exchange for sanctions relief and a better relationship with the West.

Moon even said that Ju Ae – one of three children fathered by Kim – was a key motivating factor behind this drive, alleging that the North Korean leader once ‘mentioned that he has a daughter and doesn’t want her generation to live with the burden of nuclear weapons’. 

‘(Kim) sincerely explained his commitment to denuclearisation,’ Moon added.

But the talks were ultimately unsuccessful and Kim has in recent years pursued a much more hawkish policy, seeking closer ties with the likes of Russia and China while ordering military scientists and his massive defence industry to embark on a campaign of rapid armament. 

Since adopting an aggressive nuclear doctrine in 2022, North Korea has repeatedly vowed to use nuclear weapons first if it perceives the leadership in Pyongyang as under threat. 

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his daughter Kim Ju Ae attend a celebration of the 79th anniversary of the founding of the Workers’ Party of Korea in Pyongyang, North Korea, October 10, 2024

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un delivering a speech at Kim Jong Un University of National Defence for its 60th founding anniversary in Pyongyang, where he warned he would take action against the US and South Korea if they continued to provoke North Korea

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visits the National Defense University in Pyongyang, North Korea, October 7, 2024

Teachers, students and graduates of Kim Jong Un University of National Defence listening to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s speech yesterday

Kim and his daughter Ju Ae watch an intercontinental ballistic missile launching from an undisclosed location in North Korea

Last year saw the pariah state conduct a record number of missile tests and Kim has in recent months routinely delivered rousing speeches ordering his troops to prepare for a future conflict. 

In April, his forces reportedly conducted North Korea’s first ever ‘nuclear trigger’ drills which involved simulating a nuclear counterattack.

The drills showcased North Korea’s ‘nuclear trigger’ management system for the first time, the official Korean Central News Agency reported, adding the army conducted a successful test of the country’s combined control system for its nuclear weapons.

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First-ever images of North Korea’s uranium enrichment plant revealed

Then last month, North Korea’s media unveiled to the world a glimpse into a facility producing weapons-grade uranium as Kim ordered his scientists and military officials to ‘exponentially’ increase the number of nuclear weapons at his disposal. 

A selection of state media photos showed Kim clad in all-black being briefed by scientists and a pair of military men while walking through long lines of tall grey tubes.

The Korean Central News Agency didn’t say when Kim visited the facilities, nor did it reveal where they are located.

But it is the Hermit Kingdom’s first disclosure of a uranium-enrichment facility since it showed one at Yongbyon to visiting American scholars in 2010 – and the first time it has ever published pictures to the world.   

While the latest unveiling is likely an attempt to apply more pressure on the US and its allies, the images could provide outsiders with a valuable source of information for estimating the amount of nuclear ingredients that North Korea has produced.

Experts also said the sudden public disclosure of the North’s uranium enrichment facility could be intended to impact the US presidential election in November.

The images are ‘a message to the next administration that it will be impossible to denuclearise North Korea’, according to Hong Min, a senior analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification.

‘It is also a message demanding other countries to acknowledge North Korea as a nuclear state,’ he added. 

Kim Ju Ae has been pictured alongside her father and North Korea’s weapons arsenal on several occasions since she first appeared in November 2022

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, accompanied by his daughter Kim Ju Ae, visits a military vehicle production plant on January 5, 2024

A selection of state media photos showed Kim clad in all-black being briefed by scientists and a pair of military men while walking along long lines of tall grey tubes

A new 600mm multiple rocket launcher is test-fired at an undisclosed location in North Korea

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un aims a weapon as he visits the training base of the special operations armed force of North Korea’s army at an undisclosed location in North Korea

Kim Jong Un’s daughter has made regular appearances alongside her father – including at nuclear missile tests – ever since 2022.

But speculation that she could be next in line to rule North Korea ramped up significantly in March when Ju Ae, thought to be 11 or 12 years old, was hailed by state media as a ‘great person of guidance’ – a term typically reserved exclusively for top leaders and their successors.

Analysts said it was the first time Kim’s daughter – never named by Pyongyang, but identified as Ju Ae by South Korean intelligence – had been described as such by the North, suggesting she could have been chosen for a third hereditary succession.

The daughter of Kim Jon Un and First Lady Ri Sol Ju, Ju Ae was hidden away from foreign media through childhood until American former basketball player Dennis Rodman revealed her existence following a visit to North Korea in 2013.

But little was known about Ju Ae, believed to be the middle child of three, until she made her first public appearance at the time of a missile launch in November 2022.

‘Usually the term ”hyangdo” (great person of guidance) is only used to refer to the highest-ranking official,’ Koo Byoung-sam, a spokesman for Seoul’s Unification Ministry, said at a briefing in March.

‘We are not ruling out the possibility of Ju Ae’s succession’, he said, adding that Seoul was ‘monitoring the situation and remaining open to possibilities.’