Inside the venue, an imposing stone hall the size of two soccer pitches, North Korea’s 33-year-old leader Kim Jong Un was presumed to be kicking off an event where he is expected to outline his “Byongjin” policy of simultaneous pursuit of nuclear weapons and economic growth.
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The congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) comes as North Korea was slapped with tougher sanctions by the U.N. Security Council in March over its nuclear test and long-range rocket launch early this year.
According to North Korea’s KRT state television, Kim made the remarks to North Korea’s highest political body, the Workers’ Party Congress. The last time the congress was convened, in 1980, was before Kim was born. The North’s state media has yet to publish any reports on the gathering. But there was barely more than a year between the announcement of Kim Jong Un as successor, and his accession to the North Korean throne.
North Korea on Friday staged its most important political show for a generation, aimed at cementing the absolute rule of leader Kim Jong-Un and underlining the sanctions-hit country’s “prestige” as a nuclear power.
A government source said Friday that the North did not actively send out invitations ahead of the congress.
Later in the day, the WPK’s central committee will hold a session to review accomplishments and discuss future plans.
North Korea has invited foreign media to cover the congress, although journalists’ movements are closely managed and much of the country and its people remain off-limits to outsiders.
“Whenever I come here, I feel the love and affection of our great Marshal Kim Jong Un”, said eight-year old Sun Ji Hoon, one of the performers at the children’s palace.
North Korea is one of the world’s most repressive and reclusive states and is among the world’s worst violators of human rights, according to the U.S. State Department and Human Rights Watch.
The country conducted a nuclear test in January and the rocket launch of a satellite into space in February.
A recent string of nuclear and ballistic missile tests have tried Beijing’s patience.
Pyongyang claimed it has the status of a nuclear power and that it has successfully developed a hydrogen bomb, EFE news reported.
The North’s official KCNA news agency did celebrate Kim’s alleged achievements as a statement from his authoritarian regime’s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea vowed to continue to develop nuclear weapons in response to perceived American aggression. “Songun has bankrupted North Korea and made it permanently dependent on China”, Kelly said.
Some analysts also blame Kim Jong Il, the late father of the current leader, whose “military-first”‘ policy diminished the party’s authority.
He thanked his people for their “70-day battle of loyalty”, a state-mandated work campaign that had North Koreans arriving at work by 5:30 a.m. daily and working late leading up to Friday’s congress.
“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. The country’s economy has been weakened by several rounds of United Nations sanctions over its nuclear program.
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The streets are lined with National and Workers’ Party flags with banners that read “Great comrades Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il will always be with us” and “Defend the headquarters of the Korean revolution at the cost of the our lives”.
