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| North Korean leader Kim Jong-un attends a meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea in Pyongyang, Dec. 1, in this photo provided by the North Korean government. AP-Yonhap |
North Korea is set to convene a key meeting of its rubber-stamp legislature this weekend following a barrage of missile tests, a potential opportunity for the outside world to get a clue to the reclusive Kim Jong-un regime's intentions. The North has often used such an event to deliver messages, either direct or veiled, to South Korea and the United States.
The 6th session of the 14th Supreme People's Assembly (SPA) will be held in Pyongyang, Sunday, to discuss issues such as national tasks and the state budget for this year, according to the North's state media.
The SPA is the highest organ of power under the North's Constitution, though it rubber-stamps decisions by the ruling party.
It usually holds a plenary session in March or April to deal mainly with budget and cabinet reshuffles. But the North held two SPA sessions in January and September last year. During the September gathering, Kim announced a decision to restore communication lines with South Korea as part of efforts to improve inter-Korean relations and achieve "solid peace" on the peninsula.
The upcoming session comes a week after the North's launch of an intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) into the East Sea, marking the country's seventh such show of force this year and its longest-range missile test since the test-firing of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in November 2017.
It is unclear if Kim will attend in person.
He participated in eight out of 14 SPA sessions held after he took the helm of the country in late 2011, and delivered policy speeches at two of those events ― in April 2019 and September 2021.
"The government will ... continue monitoring related moves, focusing on leader Kim Jong-un's possible attendance and follow-up measures on decisions made at its recent party plenary," Cha Duck-chul, deputy spokesman for Seoul's unification ministry, told a regular press briefing Friday.
The North held a five-day plenary meeting of the ruling Workers' Party in December and vowed to bolster the country's military capabilities.
The North has been ratcheting up tensions on the Korean Peninsula, with a series of missile tests and a threat apparently to suspend its years-long moratorium on nuclear weapons and ICBM tests amid a deadlock in denuclearization talks with the U.S.
On Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken condemned the North's recent missile launches as a violation of multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions and reaffirmed that Washington remains open to dialogue. (Yonhap)
