NORTH Korea has held a military parade and rally in Kim Il Sung Square, just one day before South Korea hosts the opening ceremony of the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics.

Kim Jong Un, dressed in a long black winter coat, was shown walking on a red carpet with his wife at the beginning of the event, which North Korea’s state-run television broadcast hours after it was over.

It began with thousands of goose-stepping troops lined up in Kim Il Sung Square to form words and slogans. Virtually all foreign media were excluded from the event.

In a televised speech, Kim said that the parade marks North Korea’s emergence as a “global military power” despite facing the “worst sanctions”.

He called for his military to maintain a high level of combat readiness against the United States and its “followers” so that the “invasive forces cannot infringe upon or harass the republic’s sacred dignity and autonomy even by 0.001 millimetres”.

Kim did not make any comments about the Olympics in the parts of his speech that were broadcast. It was unclear whether the North showed the entirety of his speech during the recorded coverage of the parade that seemed heavily edited.

North Korea had said it would hold a big event to mark the 70th anniversary of the founding of its military. The Olympics were probably also a big factor, with Kim going out of his way to attract attention.