About 20,000 young people gathered at Pyongyang’s Kim Il Sung Stadium for a speech that capped an unprecedented six-day children’s festival. The celebrations took place two days after North Korea’s military threatened to fire at South Korean media companies unless they apologized for criticisms of the festivities, including a Channel A report comparing the event to Hitler Youth rallies during Germany’s Nazi era. …

“By mingling with kids, Kim Jong Un is showing that he is a leader who can interact with the public,” said Ahn Chan-il, a political scientist who heads the World Institute for North Korea Studies in Seoul, South Korea. “He understands that one of the keys to winning back the respect of the people is by starting with the young generation.”

By speaking publicly twice in his six months as leader, Kim already is distinguishing himself from his father. Kim Jong Il, who died in December, addressed the public only once, two years before he succeeded father Kim Il Sung.

Kim told the children, who were dispatched to Pyongyang for the gathering by plane, train and bus from across the nation, that they were the future masters of “a most powerful country where every home will be full of laughter and everybody lives in harmony.”