North Korea Starts Key Party Meeting to Discuss Defence Strategy

SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea convened a key party meeting to decide its diplomatic and defence strategy “to cope with the changed international situation”, with leader Kim Jong Un attending, state media KCNA said on Saturday.

The enlarged plenary meeting of the Central Committee of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) opened on Friday and plans to also review the country’s economic projects during the first half of this year, KCNA said without further elaborating.

The meeting will likely be held for multiple days.

North Korea fired two short-range missiles off its east coast on Thursday, less than an hour after Pyongyang warned of an “inevitable” response to military drills staged earlier in the day by South Korean and U.S. troops. North Korea has said the drills were escalating military tensions.

Last month, Pyongyang unsuccessfully tried to launch a spy satellite, in its first satellite launch since 2016.

(Reporting by Joyce Lee; Editing by Sandra Maler)

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