There has been widespread speculation that the congress would be preceded by another nuclear test in a gesture of strength and defiance that would allow Kim to claim genuine nuclear power status in his speech.
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North Korea’s drive to develop a nuclear weapons capability has angered China, Pyongyang’s sole major diplomatic and economic supporter. The six party talks collapsed in 2009 after Pyongyang conducted a nuclear test and withdrew from the dialogue.
The elder Kim died in December 2011 of a heart attack while on a train, the North’s state media said.
These were victories won, the newspaper said, through a national struggle against United Nations sanctions over the North’s nuclear programme, the threat posed by US-South Korea military drills and worldwide criticism of the North’s human rights record.
Security has been stepped up ahead of the congress.
Vigil has been tightened while free movement in and out of the capital has also been forbidden.
The congress, which has been dubbed a coronation by media outlets, will recognize the 33-year-old leader as the legitimate inheritor of his grandfather’s dictatorship, which has been passed from generation to generation.
The government has cut the total area planted with tobacco “as much as possible” and health warnings are required on cigarette packs, the North’s official KCNA news agency said. During the last one, in 1980, Kim’s father – Kim Jong-il – was confirmed as the successor to the state’s founder, Kim Il-sung.
The Chinese and Russian foreign ministers last week urged Washington and Seoul to drop the proposed deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system, following North Korea’s fourth nuclear bomb on January 6 and subsequent missile tests.
The launch was expected to mark the seventh Congress of the Korean Workers Party – due to take place this month.
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“It is now his era, and the elders have passed away, and the idea will be that if he remains first secretary, then he might think he won’t get enough respect because of that”, said An Chan-il, former North Korean military official who now heads a think tank in Seoul.
