North Korea's ruling party opened Tuesday a key year-end meeting to review its policies from 2023 and discuss a draft budget for next year, with leader Kim Jong Un hailing achievements in boosting "national power," the official Korean Central News Agency said.
Kim, who presided over the plenary meeting of the Workers' Party of Korea Central Committee, in his report defined 2023 as "a year of great turn," in which North Korea "left a great trace in the glorious course of development in the efforts to improve the national power and enhance the prestige of the country," KCNA said Wednesday.
The report said "change and progress" were made in areas including politics, national defense and diplomacy, it added.
KCNA noted the country's possession of "space reconnaissance assets," referring to the November launch of a military spy satellite, and said Pyongyang "has been unswervingly put (in) the position of a military power" following the development of new strategic weapons.
The agency also mentioned a constitutional amendment in September to incorporate Pyongyang's policy of boosting its nuclear force, saying the move firmly laid "a strong institutional and legal foundation for defending the state, self-respect and national interests."
The gathering presented six major agenda items including the implementation of the state budget in 2023 and the draft state budget for 2024, the agency added. The party meeting is expected to continue for several days with decisions expected to be released later.
The session may discuss plans for more satellite launches next year, nuclear and missile development, policies in dealing with such countries as the United States, Russia and China, and the full scrapping of COVID border restrictions introduced in January 2020.
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