A mosaic portrait featuring North Korean Kim Jong-un is seen in this photocarried by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency, Sept. 1, 2023. Yonhap

North Koreans were ordered to make a "loyalty oath" on Jan. 8, leader Kim Jong-un's birthday, not on the first day of this year, as the North seeks to bolster the personality cult for Kim, South Korea's unification ministry said Tuesday.

Usually, North Koreans are ordered to sign a "loyalty oath" document on Jan. 1 to show their allegiance to the regime, after gathering at a meeting related to the ruling Workers' Party of Korea or Kim Jong-un.

In the past, the North also ordered its people to take an oath of allegiance on Feb. 16, the birthday of Kim Jong-il, the late father of the incumbent leader, and April 15, the birthday of late national founder Kim Il-sung.

The unification ministry said North Korea held such a ritual on Jan. 8, Kim Jong-un's birthday, not on Jan. 1 this year, a move seen as being aimed at reinforcing the idolization of Kim as the sole leader.

"There is a possibility that North Korea could expand the use of a pin featuring Kim Jong-un's solitary portrait and designate his birthday as a national holiday," a ministry official told reporters.

North Korea has been bolstering the personality cult for Kim as the sole ruler, warranting people's respect while refraining from excessively extolling the late state founder.

In a related move, North Korea has stopped using its "juche," or self-reliance, calendar —a system of numbering the years that symbolizes Kim Il-sung. Under this calendar, adopted in 1997, the national founder's birth year, 1912, is considered Juche 1.

The ministry said the Rodong Sinmun, the North's main newspaper, began removing the use of the juche calendar in its Oct. 13 edition, and state TV footage featuring the Juche year has been also edited or cut.

Meanwhile, North Korea's trade with China has yet to recover to the pre-pandemic level though the North reopened its border last year following years of COVID-19 border restrictions, according to the ministry.

North Korea's trade with China, the North's main economic benefactor, came to $1.49 billion in the January-September period, compared with $1.62 billion the previous year.

The data came as relations between North Korea and China have cooled amid Pyongyang's close alignment with Moscow.

On North Korea's trade with Russia, the ministry said the trade volume is presumed to increase "significantly" this year, compared with last year, amid an increase in the North's imports of wheat flour and refined oil from Russia.

In regard to the possibility of North Korea's additional deployment of troops to Russia, the ministry official said the rotation of soldiers seems to be more likely, rather than an additional dispatch of troops, if Moscow's war with Ukraine continues. (Yonhap)