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PHOTOS Kim Jong-un extols H-bomb scientists for 'great victory'

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Kim Jong-un and his wife Ri Sol-ju applaud at a ceremony marking the successful test of nuclear weapon on Sept. 3. The photo is from the state-run news agency KCNA on Sunday. / Yonhap

By Chyung Eun-ju, Park Si-soo

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un praised nuclear scientists at an extravagant banquet marking what Pyongyang claimed was a successful test of a hydrogen bomb on Sept. 3, the North’s state media reported Sunday.

Basking in the biggest spotlight were Ri Hong-sop, head of the North’s Nuclear Weapons Institute, and Hong Sung-mu, deputy director of the ruling Worker’s Party of Korea’s munitions industry department.

Ri is a former director of the Yongbyon Nuclear Research Center, North Korea’s main nuclear facility. Hong has been Kim’s right-hand man since 2010.

The two received the “honor” of receiving Kim’s first-hand compliments during the event, according to photos released by the state news agency KCNA on Sunday. This reflected that the two men had played a critical role in the test.

Kim extolled them for“taking the lead” in what he called “a great victory won by the Korean people at the cost of their blood,” said KCNA. He also urged the officials to “follow the fighting spirit and trait of the nuclear combatants.”

Kim Jong-un, center, with Ri Hong-sup, left, and Hong Sung-mu, North Korea’s two key nuclear weapon developers, during a event celebrating the successful test of a nuclear weapon on Sept. 3 in this photo from the state-run news agency KCNA on Sunday. / Yonhap

It is unclear when the ceremony was held. The KCNA said the ceremony was to celebrate the completion of technology to develop miniaturized nuclear warheads that could be mounted on inter-continental ballistic missiles, which was allegedly proven through the latest nuclear test.

North Korea experts here believe the banquet was held at Mokran House, a banquet hall in central Pyongyang, on Saturday, the regime’s 69th anniversary.

The front page of North Korean newspaper Rodong Sinmun’s Sunday edition. It features pictures of Kim Jong-un and the ceremony with the headline “Kudos to the Workers’ Party that has opened the era of victory.” / Yonhap

Singers accompany an orchestra during a ceremony marking the successful test of nuclear weapon on Sept. 3. The photo is from the state-run news agency KCNA on Sunday. / Yonhap