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from: KIM TONG-HYUNG, Associated Press
Posted: 10/10/2021 / 9:06 PM CDT
Updated: 10/10/2021 / 9:06 PM CDT
In this photo provided by the North Korean government, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un gives a speech during an event to celebrate the 76th anniversary of the country’s Workers’ Party in Pyongyang, North Korea on Sunday October 10, 2021. Independent journalists were not given access to cover the event depicted in this picture distributed by the North Korean government. The content of this image is as provided and cannot be independently verified. According to the source, the Korean watermark on the picture reads: “KCNA”, the abbreviation for Korean Central News Agency. (Korean Central News Agency / Korea News Service via AP)
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) – North Korea said Monday that head of state Kim Jong Un had urged officials to move past the country’s “dire situation” and make greater efforts to improve the diets and living conditions of its people.
However, state media made no specific comments on Washington and Seoul when covering Kim’s speech on the 76th anniversary of the founding of the ruling Labor Party.
Washington-Pyongyang nuclear negotiations have stalled for more than two years because of disagreements over the exchange of crippling US-led sanctions against North Korea and the North’s denuclearization moves.
The country has stepped up its missile testing activities in recent weeks as it makes conditional peace offers to Seoul and resuscitated a pattern of pressuring South Korea to get what it wants from the United States.
Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency said Kim said during his speech on Sunday that his party was determined to meet the economic goals set at the January Party Congress when he admitted his previous economic plans were unsuccessful and released new development plans for the next 5 years.
The agency said Kim had confirmed the party’s determination to efficiently implement the five-year plan to “boost the national economy and solve people’s food, clothing and housing problems.”
The KCNA said Kim had analyzed the “unprecedented difficulties” in the north and called for the party’s single-minded unity in developing the state economy in the face of the “dire situation”.
Analysts say Kim faces what may be the toughest moment in power of his near decade. At his summit meeting with then President Donald Trump in 2018 and 2019, he failed to enact the urgently needed sanctions.
The World Health Organization announced last week that some of its COVID-19 medical supplies had arrived in a North Korean port, an indication that the North is loosening one of the world’s toughest pandemic border closures to seek outside help.
Kim has so far rejected the offer of the Biden government to resume the dialogue without preconditions.
But the north has also re-established lines of communication with the south in recent weeks, saying it could take further steps to improve bilateral relations if Seoul abandons its “double stance” and “hostile view”.
Analysts say North Korea is using the South’s desire for inter-Korean engagement to drive a wedge between Washington and Seoul and pressure the South to force concessions from the Biden government on its behalf.
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