The North’s state media did not say what would be discussed and decided on during the congress.
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In response, Kim last month ordered tests of a nuclear warhead and ballistic missiles capable of carrying warheads.
Kenji Fujimoto, the former sushi chef to the current leader’s father, Kim Jong Il, told Japanese newspaper Mainichi Shimbun that the younger Kim’s military decisions are made spontaneously. The occasion is expected to last four to five days.
The report said the Musudan missile, which can be fired from a mobile launcher, is not known to have been successfully flight-tested.
The US State Department warned on Tuesday it would consider “other” options if the North continued nuclear testing and ballistic missile launches.
The chef recently returned to North Korea more than a decade after he escaped through China and defected to Japan. The North has repeatedly tested elements of a nuclear weapons program, including the announcement of successful nuclear tests and missile launches.
The war between Pyongyang and Seoul in 1950-53, which saw the US-backed South pitted against the Soviet-backed North, technically never ended.
The congress may be meant to bolster the perception that Kim has a stable hold on power, Yang Moo-jin from South Korea’s University of North Korean Studies said when it was first announced. Washington has collaborated with Seoul to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), a missile-defense system.
The network of overseas North Korean restaurants came under the spotlight earlier this month, when a group of 13 workers at one of the restaurants in China defected to the South.
The crisis deepened earlier this year when North Korea conducted a fourth nuclear test and a long-range rocket launch, which led to the United Nations slapping its toughest sanctions on Pyongyang in 20 years. Park said last week there were signs North Korea was preparing for a new nuclear test.
“The exercise is believed to be aimed at stirring up hostility against the South, summoning up loyalty (to leader Kim Jong-Un) and fuelling security concerns in the South”, the official said.
South Korea and the U.S. are concerned that a new nuclear test could take the North a step closer toward manufacturing a warhead small enough to place on a long-range missile.
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On Tuesday, Barack Obama told CBS that the USA “is spending a lot more time positioning our missile development systems, so that even as we try to resolve the underlying problem of nuclear development inside of North Korea, we’re also setting up a shield that can at least block the relatively low-level threats that they’re posing now”.
