PYONGYANG, March 31 (Itar-Tass) – The Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea opened its plenary session in Pyongyang on Sunday, the Itar-Tass correspondent reported.
It is expected that the session’s results will become known later in the day.
According to earlier reports, the plenary session should take place in March, but no concrete date has been announced.
The Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea said delegates will discuss “important issues in order to victoriously advance the Korean revolution and take a decisive turn in achieving the Juche revolutionary cause under the banner of Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism,” KCNA reported.
The party’s leadership calls on people “to close the ranks around the North Korean leader, to demonstrate power of the Korean nation to the whole world, to ensure reliable defence of sovereignty and build a prosperous socialist state.”
On April 1 a session of the Supreme People’s Assembly will also take place in Pyongyang. The agenda of the upcoming session has not been specified. As a rule legislators meet in the North Korean capital once or twice a year to approve new bills and appointments.
The session will take place ahead of the national holiday “Day of the Sun” in honor of late President Kim Il Sung’s birthday marked on April 15. It is not ruled out that parliamentarians will discuss preparations for the 60th anniversary of the 1950-1953 Korean War as North Korean leader Kim Jong-un pays special attention to this event.
This year legislators will gather amid sharp aggravation of the situation on the Korean Peninsula after North Korea’s satellite launch last December and its third nuclear test last February.
In response the UN Security Council adopted two resolutions expanding sanctions against Pyongyang. North Korea’s Foreign Ministry said it would not recognize these “criminal” documents approved under the pressure of the United States and with active participation of South Korea. Moreover, Pyongyang strongly reacted to the U.S.-South Korea manoeuvres on the Korean Peninsula with the participation of B-52 and B-2 bombers.
In this connection, Kim Jong-un as the commander-in-chief signed “the final plan for the technical preparation of the strategic missile troops to carry out a strike against military bases on the continental part of the United States, in Guam and Hawaii and in South Korea in case of an enemy provocation”.
“North Korea does not intend to passively watch the U.S. preparation for aggression, and its armed forces will respond with a merciless nuclear strike to the nuclear blackmail from the U.S.,” he noted.
After receiving the corresponding order, “the army with one strike will turn (enemy bases) into ash,” the first chairman of the National Defence Commission added.