Kim Jong Un Visits Site Building 'a Major Weapon' Amid Record North Korea Launches

North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un has visited a site said to be manufacturing "a major weapon" amid a record-breaking series of launches this month.

The official Korean Central News Agency published a report Thursday (Friday local time) that purported to show the ruler as he "inspected a munitions factory producing a major weapon system" at an undisclosed location alongside an entourage, some of whose faces were censored in the accompanying images.

© Korean Central News Agency North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un is seen during an inspection of "a munitions factory producing a major weapon system" in this photo published January 27 by state-run media.

Among those identified with him were ruling Korean Workers' Party Central Committee Organizational Affairs Secretary Jo Yong Won and Central Committee Vice Department Directors Kim Jong Sik and Kim Yo Jong—who is also Kim Jong Un's sister—along with top officials in the sector of the Academy of Defence Science.

Kim Jong Un was cited as saying that "the factory holds a very important position and duty in modernizing the country's armed forces and realizing the national defense development strategy" and having "indicated the tasks and ways of continuously developing the factory into an iconic one symbolic of the modernity of the country's defense industry."

"He ardently appealed to workers, technicians, officials and military inspectors of the factory to turn out as one in an all-out drive for thoroughly implementing the policies of munitions set forth at the 8th Party Congress by carrying forward the traditions and history of the country's proud defense industry of safeguarding the Party and the revolution with munitions production, bearing in their minds the single intention to defend the revolutionary cause of the Party with powerful cutting-edge arms," KCNA reported.

A year on from the 8th Party Congress held last January, North Korea has demonstrated an array of new military capabilities, including cruise missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, train-launched missiles, and, most notably, hypersonic missiles with advanced gliding features. In the past month alone, North Korea has fired at least 10 missiles in six launches, the latest of which took place Wednesday.

KCNA also on Thursday reported that Wednesday's launch involved "the test-fire for confirming the power of conventional warhead for surface-to-surface tactical guided missile" and that Tuesday's demonstration involved "the test-fire for updating long-range cruise missile system." Both tests involved two missiles each.

The United Nations Security Council restricts North Korea from conducting such missile activities, but Pyongyang has rejected this ban. Still, the latest spat of testing has elicited criticism from the U.S. and its Japanese and South Korean allies, as well as a number of European countries.

"We are aware of the ballistic missile launches and are consulting closely with our allies and partners," U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said of Wednesday's test in a statement. "While we have assessed that this event does not pose an immediate threat to U.S. personnel or territory, or to our allies, the recent series of DPRK ballistic missile tests highlight the destabilizing impact of the DPRK's illicit weapons program. The U.S. commitment to the defense of the Republic of Korea and Japan remains ironclad."