To the United States and its allies, North Korea has promised to create its own “new and more powerful types of nuclear weapons”, condemning Washington’s attempts to achieve “world domination”. South Korea was skeptical of the meeting’s outcome, saying the DPRK was essentially acknowledging the lack of its own recent achievements.
The DPRK’s mainstream media reported the main results of the expanded plenum of the Central Committee (CC) of the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) held in Pyongyang from June 16-18, where, as announced, they planned to to work out a new strategy for the DPRK’s actions “in the conditions of the changing world situation”.
The leadership of the North Korean party did not ignore the unsuccessful attempt to launch a military satellite, which took place on May 31 and ended with the fall of a loaded launcher in the waters of the Yellow Sea. It has been called “the most serious failure”. Launch officials came under fairly harsh criticism, asking them to “analyze the reasons for the launch failure in the most thorough manner and learn from them in order to successfully launch the reconnaissance vehicle into orbit as soon as possible”.
The DPRK stressed that it will continue the space exploration program, and specifically the launch of a military satellite is set as the main immediate priority. Although no specific timeline was given for a restart, North Korea can be sure to try again as soon as it is ready.
Regarding the international situation, the attempts of the United States and its allies to dominate the world and the escalation of tension on the Korean Peninsula have been criticized. During the plenum, they decided to respond to this by strengthening their own “self-defense forces”, promising that they “will continue to follow the path towards the development of nuclear weapons” and “increase the production of powerful types nuclear weapons.” At the same time, a goal was announced to strengthen cooperation with other states that pursue a friendly policy towards Pyongyang.
The topic of the economy was also touched upon: the plenum summed up the results of the work of the first half of the year, mentioning the DPRK’s new construction projects, and also recognizing “some difficulties and shortcomings”. Increasing cereal production, “building new homes for economic development” and “significant measures to promote education” were identified as immediate priorities. The need for stricter control of party discipline was also stressed.
It was rather unusual that, although the country’s leader Kim Jong-un personally attended the plenum of the WPK Central Committee, he did not deliver a speech. At least the official DPRK media didn’t say anything about it.
In Seoul, experts close to the South Korean government, as well as officials, rated the results of the meeting rather low, concluding that the DPRK has simply not achieved any notable success over the past six months. According to the southerners, the plenum was postponed to a later date due to the launch of the satellite, which they wanted to present as the most important achievement, but, on the contrary, turned out to be the biggest failure.
“Early this year, the DPRK said it was able to overcome economic instability, accelerate the pace of economic development, but now it is forced to talk about failures, mistakes, which, in our view, demonstrates its recognition of the impossibility of achieving the development goals set earlier,” he said in a statement. during a conversation with reporters, the official representative of the Ministry of Unification of the Republic of Korea, Koo Byung-sam. For the same reason, according to the official, Kim Jong-un refused to speak, which was very unusual. Before that, during the plenums of the WPK Central Committee, Kim always made personal statements and reports.
It was also noted that most likely it will not be so easy for Pyongyang to repeat the attempt to launch a satellite into orbit. “The publications following the results of the plenum of the WPK Central Committee indicated that the technical problems during the launch were related to the irresponsibility of the officials involved in the launch. In this regard, it seems to me that it is very likely that the second attempt will be postponed,” said a researcher from the Institute for Unification Problems RK Hong Min. On the other hand, it has been suggested that the role and scope of the North Korean space agency is likely to be increased, given the repeated declarations of intent to develop this industry.
The experts were also attracted by two very significant personnel “returned from oblivion”. Two politicians were again appointed to positions of responsibility, who previously occupied the highest echelons of power, but who were later, for one reason or another, removed from their posts. In South Korea, first of all, they paid attention to the return of the military “hawk” Kim Yong-chul. According to Seoul, he was responsible for the sinking of the South Korean corvette Cheonan in 2010. He also played a key role in North Korean diplomacy in 2018-2019. during negotiations with the United States and South Korea. Kim Yong-chul, in particular, coordinated the details and agenda of Kim Jong-un’s meetings with Donald Trump, often speaking with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. However, after the failure of the dialogue with Washington, Kim began to be relegated to the background, depriving him of almost all of his posts by 2021. Now he was again among the candidates for the Politburo of the Central Committee of the WPK, overseeing the direction of relations with Seoul and leading the Unification Front. Southerners say this could bolster Pyongyang’s propensity to act firmly and sometimes aggressively against South Korea.
In addition, he returned to high positions and was dismissed in the middle of last year from the post of Minister of Economy and Secretary of the WPK Central Committee Oh Su-yong. He became party secretary again and is working again in the economy-related department. “Oh’s return is most likely due to the need to achieve some success in the economy, while after his departure, nothing particularly significant and good from the DPRK’s point of view happened. It seems to be an attempt to return a specialist, giving him a chance to prove himself again,” commented on this appointment to the Ministry of Unification of the Republic of Kazakhstan.
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