North Korea has since time immemorial defied outside governments and carried out several missile tests despite numerous economic sanctions by the global community.
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But Michael Madden, a USA -based expert on the North Korean leadership, said it was significant that Kim had put forward a five-year economic plan.
“Kim’s relatively conciliatory messages for South Korea and the United States gives a small window for creative diplomacy”, said John Delury, associate professor of Chinese Studies at Yonsei University’s Graduate School of International Studies in Seoul.
To do that, he stressed that North Korea must strive to build better trade relations with other countries, though he also remained firm on what the North claims is its right to develop and possess a nuclear arsenal for self-defense.
The BBC’s Tokyo correspondent, Rupert Wingfield-Hayes, has been expelled from North Korea, three days after he was detained in the capital Pyongyang over reports that the authorities said were “disrespectful” towards the country’s leader, Kim Jong-un.
Kim’s younger sister, Kim Yo Jong, was elected a member of the ruling party’s powerful Central Committee.
The state-run Korean Central News Agency reported on Tuesday that Kim Yo-jong was named a member of the Workers’ Party of Korea’s Central Committee during the congress that ended on Monday.
Since fully assuming power in 2012, Kim has ordered the execution of his uncle-in-law Jang Sung Taek in 2013, and likely executed his defense minister, Hyon Yong Chol, in 2015.
Images taken last Thursday – on the eve of the start of the first Workers’ Party congress since 1980 – showed four vehicles at the Punggye-ri test site’s command center, raising speculation that a detonation could happen before the historic assembly wrapped up on Monday. Kim Jong Un watched the event from a platform flanked by second-in-command Kim Yong Nam and third-ranking Hwang Pyong So.
North Korean and Chinese state media carried a message of congratulations to Kim from Chinese President Xi Jinping for his promotion at the party congress.
The power of the military expanded during Kim Jong Il’s 17-year tenure, which did not include a party congress.
“We will make efforts together with the DPRK side to bring happiness to the two countries and their peoples and contribute to peace, stability and development in this region by steadily developing the Sino-DPRK friendship and cooperation”, North Korea’s state KCNA news agency quoted Mr Xi as saying, in using the official acronym for the North, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Others have criticized the leadership for being “far behind the times”, as stiff competition in the jangmadang (market economy, official or otherwise) is now the primary focus of North Korean society. Media access inside North Korea is tightly controlled.
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An unusually large number of foreign journalists was also at the rally. North Korea has not made any annnouncements yet, but considering that NHK was one of the few allowed inside the convention adds credibility to this latest news report.
