Analysts said the walk could signal a new direction in the country's politics. Whenever the leader went on Mount Paektu, a sacred mountain for the Nords-Koreans, he then made a major political decision.

IN IMAGES, IN PICTURES

Images of Kim Jong Un walking on a white horse in a snowy landscape of Mount Paektu, a sacred mountain for the Nords-Koreans on the border with China, have sparked speculation about the imminence of a major political announcement.

These images, broadcast by the national news agency KCNA, accompany a text evoking the "noble splinters" in the eyes of the young North Korean leader and qualifying his horse ride as a "major event of fundamental importance" for the country. . The officials present were convinced that "there will be a big operation to strike the world again with astonishment and take a step forward in the Korean revolution," the agency said.

A political turning point?

Analysts said the walk could signal a new direction in the country's politics. "In the past, Kim Jong Un went to Mount Paektu before any major political decision," said Shin Beom-chul of the Asan Institute of Political Studies in Seoul. Kim Jong Un rode on the mountain in December 2017, before the diplomatic openings that led to his historic summit with US President Donald Trump.

Photo credit: STR / KCNA VIA KNS / AFP

Negotiations have been skating since February's failure of a second Kim-Trump summit, and North Korea has raised the tide with a series of missile tests. Images of rulers riding white horses across snow-capped peaks, especially Mount Paektu, haunted posters and portraits in the days of Kim Jong Un's father, Kim Jong Il, and his grandfather, Kim Il Sung. For BR Myers, an expert in North Korean propaganda and a professor at Dongseo University in South Korea, these images evoke the imperial theme of a leader who protects the purity of the nation from corrupt forces from outside.

Kim Jong Un also visited the site of a gigantic construction project in Samjiyon district, at the foot of Mount Paektu, according to KCNA. He blamed the country's difficulties for international sanctions on the initiative of the United States. "The country's situation is difficult because of the incessant sanctions and the pressure of the hostile forces, and many difficulties and hardships are ahead of us," said Kim Jong Un, according to the agency.

Photo credit: STR / KCNA VIA KNS / AFP

North Korea has been hit with several sets of sanctions by the UN for its nuclear weapons and missile programs. Discussions in Sweden between Pyongyang and Washington on the North Korean nuclear program ended in early October in an impasse, North Korea accusing the United States of having failed consultations and the latter claiming instead that they had been "good".

North Korea has left the negotiating table, saying it is disappointed by the lack of "new and creative" solutions proposed by Washington, which for its part proposed a new meeting later this month. North Korea conducted a sea-ground ballistic missile test in early October after having already stepped up short-range missile tests in recent months.