N Korea’s Kim holds top party meeting
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has convened a key meeting of top ruling party officials, state media said yesterday, ahead of a year-end deadline for Washington to shift its stance on stalled nuclear talks.
The plenary session, which opened on Saturday, follows widespread speculation that Pyongyang is preparing to test an intercontinental ballistic missile -- as a threatened “Christmas gift” for Washington.
Kim presided over the meeting which discussed a new “transparent, anti-imperialist independent stand”, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported.
The ruling Workers’ Party of Korea will also “discuss important matters arising... in the building of the state and national defence”, KCNA added.
Talks on denuclearising the Korean peninsula have been largely deadlocked since the second summit between Kim and US President Donald Trump collapsed in Hanoi at the start of this year.
The opening of the plenary comes a week after Kim held a meeting of top defence officials and discussed boosting military capabilities, and ahead of the leader’s New Year speech on January 1, a key political set-piece in the isolated country.
Pyongyang has carried out a series of static tests at its Sohae rocket facility this month.
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