North Korea News Podcast by NK News - Return of the Pyongyang marathon and North Korea’s military drills targeting ROK

Episode Date: April 8, 2025

Hundreds of runners took to the streets of Pyongyang as North Korea hosted its premier international marathon race for the first time in six years on Sunday.  NK News Senior Analytic Correspondent Colin Zwirko joins the podcast to discuss what this means for the future of tourism in the country as the event marked the […]

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as well as much, much more. To find the best fit for you, just head to sign the NK News podcast. I'm your host, Jaco Zwetsloot, and this episode was recorded on the evening of Monday, the 7th of April, 2025, on StreamYard, and I'm joined on StreamYard by my colleague at NK News and NK Pro, Colin Zwirko. Colin, welcome. Hello, Jacko. Hello. So what story would you like to start with this week? Well, I mean, I guess we can we can talk about the marathon if you want. It's something I know you know a lot about as well. Yes, the Pyongyang Marathon, I think you mean, not the Seoul marathon,

although both were held on the same day. Yeah, that happened yesterday for the first time since April 2019 when I was there. So, yeah, it's been, gosh, six years now. I had no idea that they were that they overlapped. I had no idea. It's crazy. I know more about the Pyongyang marathon than the one in the city. One peninsula, two capitals, two marathons. That's right. Yeah. Okay. So tell us about the Pyongyang marathon.

Well, that means that people had to choose, uh, which one they would go to. That's kind of interesting. I mean, the real serious runners that collect marathons, right? Right. Yeah. That good point. I didn't think of that. that collect marathons, right? Right. Yeah, that's a good point. I didn't think of that. Yeah, I mean, so this, like you said, this was the first one since 2019 in Pyongyang.

It's a bit odd of a situation. I would say that the first thing to think about is that this isn't a huge indicator on the tourism front. So this is kind of an isolated incident. So I think it's interesting for a lot of reasons, but that's, yeah, it's kind of strange how people, and there wasn't a whole lot being talked about about this before it happened.

Some, unless you were really keenly tuned into this, then you probably weren't aware that it was even gonna happen. So. Yeah, I think there's a lot of uncertainty or even skepticism about whether it would go ahead, right? Yeah, but you know, the everyone arrived in Pyongyang, they flew there. I'm still I don't know the details on all the what kind of flights everyone was on. But so the the the story written

by our colleague Shreyas Reddy today on the NK News website says that there are 500 people from abroad participating and that includes 200 amateur runners and then the rest being so-called elite athletes who are trying to win the race, right? So in the past, these amateur runners would be, Anna, maybe you've experienced this and you can maybe chime in, but they would be typically tourists who want to take advantage of the, you know, a leisurely maybe walk through the city to look around and interact with North Koreans if they can and things like that. So yeah, I mean, did you participate in the marathon itself ever, like walking through the city?

I'm not a marathon runner or even a runner, but I did successfully walk 10 kilometers in 90 minutes through Pyongyang, and that was fun. So I agree that there's a lot of people, a lot of the amateur folks who were on the marathon, really just to get a sense of the city at ground level, looking at people and looking into buildings and shops. But there are also some who were there to run seriously and they really did exert themselves.

I remember one guy who had exerted himself so much without proper training that he lost all of his breakfast after the race there and was really not in a good way for many hours afterwards. I think that would be, that's like the only way you can walk that much in Pyongyang. Yeah. Right. I mean, there's no other way you can go on such a long walk. Usually you're busting from place to place, right?

Yeah, exactly. So that is precisely why I was interested in doing the 10K walk, because if you're running, you don't get to see, you don't get to kind of slow down and see things that are human level, but walking you certainly do. You get to occasionally have micro interactions with the crowd who are standing by the roadside, you get to say hello to them in Korean or shout a slogan or something like that. And you know, it's fun. Yeah, yeah. And so did you have any opportunity to go this time or not?

No, I'm not sure if and when I'll be going to North Korea again for the foreseeable future. So no, I did not sign up for this particular tour. Yeah, right, right. Yeah, so according to the results, the North Koreans won pretty much all the marathons that mattered. And then we had runners from Ethiopia and the DPRK secured the silver and the bronze in the men's marathon, according to the story today. But the North Koreans won both the men's and the women's main marathon, apparently. So we've got images here of people filling Kim Il-sung stadium very much to the T in terms of how these have gone in the past.

So there's just a six year hiatus and then and then boom, you're back to normal pretty much. And like what I what I said earlier is there's no indication that this is like the start of widespread tourism. And there's still a lot of uncertainty about what North Korea wants, what they don't want in terms of exposure of the country to the outside world. So it's quite interesting. I think there's still a lot left to dig in on on this strange little anomaly of 200, you know, hundreds of foreigners from various countries coming in and then, and then they're going to leave and then North Korea is going to be back to being pretty isolated. In a way, it might feel, if that is the case, it might feel a little bit like a small-scale reproduction of the 1989 13th World Festival of Youth and Students when you had 8,000 young

people descending on Pyongyang for eight days, and then they were gone, and the city went back to being basically closed off to international visitors, except for the occasional diplomat. It'll be interesting to see in the coming days and weeks, Colin, whether any of the runners were able to take a GoPro out there and get some actual footage of Pyongyang at street level and to see what gets uploaded to social media.

Yeah, that's a good point. Definitely watch this space, right? There's going to be. Yeah. I do really enjoy the long form videos that some Russian tourists have uploaded. Yes. Tourism opened in the last couple of years. If anyone, I'm hoping someone will upload a full video of the entire marathon at walking pace so I can just kind of look around the streets. full video of the entire marathon at walking pace so I can just kind of look around the streets. Well now don't you can't do what is the full marathon's what about 42 kilometers and and you can't do that at walking speed because as I recall when I was there six years ago that they have a a cut off and after x number of hours I think it's four hours or whatever it is they

just start sweeping up well that makes slow runners and bringing them back. It would take everyone to be there forever if you're allowed to walk the full. I guess I mean just the 10k or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Now, our friends over at Cordial Tours have already added some photographs, some still images from the stadium and from outside the stadium that you can find on their social medias and on Instagram and whatnot. And I think they saw the usual outside in front of the stadium, they have a lot of food and beverage stalls where people can stop by for a snack. Mostly the North Koreans who were there to watch the marathon and the football match that usually happens while the marathon runners are away. But they also have a stall that sells lottery tickets

for the Kim Il-sung birthday memorial lottery. So I think that was there again this year. Yeah, that's interesting. Okay, so that's our first story. Where would you like to go next, Colin? Well, I mean, we could talk about the latest news coming out of North Korea on the military and leadership front, I suppose. So on Saturday, North Korean state media reported that Kim Jong-un watched a special forces military training on the previous day on Friday. What else happened on Friday, Jacko? Ah, well, there was the impeachment ruling here in South Korea. Actually, I did a special episode Friday afternoon with with Coll, sorry,

with Shreyas and with Chris Green, our special guest, but we weren't able to cover the or mention the coverage that at that stage had not yet come out in North Korean state media. Are you able to tell us what North Korean state media said about the impeachment ruling? Yes. So, so two things. The the the impeachment ruling was made just before 1130 a.m. on Friday in South Korea, pretty on edge, while the judge read out his ruling for about 20 minutes before he... But anyway, the result is that the former president, now former president Yoon Seogo was his impeachment was confirmed. So fast forward to the next morning in Korea in Korean time at around 6am. The North Korean state newspaper Rodong Shinmun reported a very simple factual report that about the ruling. So this follows the pattern over the last year or since martial law.

I forget the details on exactly how quick that initial martial law report was. But since the impeachment, it's been quick, not too opinionated a little bit. It's got an air of condescension. But anyway, that was towards the back of the newspaper. But on the front page of the newspaper on Saturday, Kim Jong-un was attending a special forces drill.

So yes, the report said he was at the drill on the 4th, which was on April 4th, which was the date of the impeachment. And then, so the report does not say where this took place, but I recognized where it took place because I located this last time he was there last September. So the pictures matched the place where he was the last time I located the pictures basically. So this was at Koksan, which is about 60 kilometers or what is that like 37 miles from the border,

from the South Korean border. And judging the shadows was able to figure out what time he was there. Colin is our eye in the sky ladies and gentlemen, he is expert at at spotting things. So yeah, so he was there watching drills simulating attacks on South Korea with posters in the background saying South Koreans are not your brothers. Wipe them out, kill them, basically missile attacks destroying the entire South Korean territory. These are in posters that are right behind Kim Jong-un. Wow. And he's doing this. This means he was there while the ruling was being read out. So it's happening the same time. Wow. Exact same time. So that means he wanted to send the message that he doesn't care what happens, that he's got a policy of opposing South Korea, of telling South Korea it's ready to go to war

with South Korea, and that he's fully focused on that, no matter what happens. So he was probably there watching this happen, and maybe someone whispered into his ear the ruling, I would assume, or he's looking at his phone or whatever. But this means if Yoon was reinstated, the first thing he would have learned is, Sir Kim Jong-un was guiding a South Korea attack simulation drill from the very first second that you were reinstated. Or now both sides candidates in the upcoming election are aware of, oh, North Korea has this policy that's not going to change this military development policy. So that's about it. Just for my linguistic interest there, Colin, do you, I don't have the

photograph of that slogan in front of me. I don't know whether you do, but do you recall what word was used to say South Korean people? Do they say 한국 사람들 or 대한민국 사람들 or something? Yeah, so let me zoom in here. It says 대한민국 족속들은 동총이 아니다. So that means the that means the Republic of Korea clan people, the gang people are not, yeah the clique are not your kin and then the next says so burn them to wipe them out. Wipe them off the face. Yeah interesting so they're really they're going with this day on muk. It's one once again a repeat of what we've seen in the last year and a half or so that North Korea in its state state in its state media and its state slogans is quite prepared to use the official name of South Korea to refer to South Korea, which of course for decades it didn't it would say,

you know, namjok whatever kweire gun or something like that. But now it's just using it would say, you know, nam chok, whatever, kwe re kun or something like that. But now it's just using te an minguk, which is interesting in itself, right? Yeah, it's Kim Jong Un's policy that he started from the first day of 2024, which is opposing unification. He wants everyone to understand that these are two separate countries, you're never going to unify, you shouldn't look up to or towards the South Koreans as if they're ever going to be part of us as a people or as a country or as a culture. And yeah, I mean, and then at the same time, he's talking about being prepared to go to war. I think the more kind of, of course, there's a lot of sensational reporting about what that means is about him maybe attacking or invading South Korea.

I think it's fine to interpret it a bit more generously to Kim Jong-un. And I think it means that his message is just don't, you know, don't mess with us because we are prepared for war but we would prefer it if you agreed with us and also considered us separate countries so we could stop with any kind of idea that maybe you're going to take over us because we're telling you we're not going to take over you but we will if we have to anyway it's right yeah wow and what interesting timing too happening during the impeachment ruling? Gosh. Okay. Well, that's where we're going to finish our short podcast episode today. So Collins, we're good. Thanks very much for coming on the show and telling us about the latest news. Thank you, Jack. In the intricate world of Korean affairs, tailored intelligence makes all the difference. Korea Risk Group's consulting services offer specialized, actionable intelligence designed

to guide your career-related decisions. We provide bespoke consulting services that cater to your unique challenges and goals. From policy analysis to market entry strategies, we bring clarity to complexity. Transform uncertainty into opportunity and visit KoreaPro.com solutions today. Ladies and gentlemen, that brings us to the end of our podcast episode for today. Our thanks go to Brian Betts and Alana Hill for facilitating this episode and to our post-recording producer genius, Gabby Magnuson, who cuts out all the extraneous noises, awkward silences, bodily functions, and fixes the audio levels. Thank you and listen again next time. you