N. Korean officials show up for year

Secretary for organizations affairs at the ruling Workers' Party Jo Yong-won, right, arrives for a year-end plenary meeting of the Central Committee of the North's ruling Workers' Party in a Mercedes-Benz vehicle, Pyongyang, Dec. 26. Yonhap

Key North Korean officials arrived for a year-end meeting of the ruling Worker's Party in luxury vehicles, state media footage showed Wednesday, despite international sanctions banning the supply of luxury goods to the North.

Footage from the North's Korean Central Television showed Premier Kim Tok-hun; Jo Yong-won, secretary for organizations affairs at the ruling Workers' Party; and Choe Ryong-hae, chairman of the Standing Committee of the Supreme People's Assembly, using Mercedes-Benz S-class cars as they made their way to the party meeting.

Earlier Wednesday, North Korean state media said leader Kim Jong-un presided over the plenary session of the ruling party to review state policies for this year and discuss those for 2024.

The footage showed a soldier escorting Premier Kim as he emerged from the rear seat of the eighth-generation S-class limousine, Jo and Choe each appeared from the driver's seats of luxury cars presumed to be ninth- and eighth-generation S-class sedans.

The 10-minute video from the state media also showed a second-generation model of the Mercedes-Maybach S-Class vehicle parked nearby, presumed to belong to the North Korean leader.

Kim has made public appearances in different Mercedes-Maybach S-class vehicles, including a limousine when attending a ceremony congratulating soldiers on the launch of a solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile this month.

In August 2020, he was spotted in the driver's seat of an SUV presumed to be a Lexus LX 570.

Such vehicles are subject to U.N. sanctions that ban the supply of luxury automobiles to North Korea.

In October, South Korea's unification ministry said Kim and his family are spending up to millions of dollar a year on luxury goods despite chronic food shortages and economic difficulties worsened by sanctions and COVID-19. (Yonhap)

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