N Korea Sets Congress amid Talks of Nuclear Test
Local Editor
In a landmark step in nearly 40 years, North Korea on Wednesday formally set May 6 for the opening of a ruling party congress - an event many expect will be preceded by a fifth nuclear test.
Anticipation over the congress, last held in 1980, has been mounting since the North signaled its intentions to hold the gathering way back in October.
No details have been provided of the agenda, but it will be scrutinized for any key policy changes or reshuffles among the country's elite.
The actual starting date had been a closely guarded secret prior to Wednesday's announcement by the ruling party's central committee politburo.
In a statement carried by the North's official KCNA news agency, the politburo said the congress - only the seventh in the party's history - would open on May 6, but did not specify how long it would last.
The 1980 congress took four days, and South Korea's Unification Ministry said it expected next week's gathering to go on for "four or five days".
There has been growing speculation that North Korea may carry out a fresh nuclear test just ahead of the event as a display of national pride and strength.
On Tuesday, South Korean President Park Geun-Hye said the North was understood to have "completed preparations" for a test, and could press the button at any time.
Such a move would constitute a dramatic act of defiance in the face of tough UN sanctions imposed on Pyongyang after its most recent nuclear test in January.
In recent months the North has announced a series of major technical breakthroughs in developing what it sees as the ultimate goal of its nuclear weapons program - an intercontinental ballistic missile [ICBM] capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to targets across the continental United States.
Earlier this month, Kim monitored the test of an engine specifically designed for an ICBM that he said would "guarantee" an eventual strike on the US mainland.
In a statement carried by KCNA late Tuesday, a North Korean foreign ministry spokesman said US hostility had pushed North Korea into making "drastic progress in bolstering nuclear attack capabilities".
Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team
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