Pyongyang: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has hailed his isolated country’s growing economic and military power at the opening of a key annual meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party.
Kim used the opening of the gathering to highlight the past year’s “successes and progress” while calling on officials to launch “more exciting and confident struggles,” the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on Tuesday.
Kim detailed how the country’s power had increased in “all fields of politics, military, economy and culture” during the past year’s “unprecedentedly arduous and fierce struggle,” KCNA said.
“He stressed the need to lay out strategies to launch more exciting and confident struggles based on valuable facts that the country has achieved practical advances after enduring all difficulties.”
The days-long gathering of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party is often used to announce major policies.
This year’s meeting comes after Pyongyang launched a record number of missiles in 2022, including intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), and as its long-struggling economy reels from the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The gathering also comes amid heightened tensions on the Korean peninsula after Seoul scrambled fighter jets and attack helicopters on Monday in response to what it said was an incursion by five North Korean drones into South Korean airspace.
