North Korea to hold key ruling party meeting in early June

SEOUL (Reuters): North Korea’s ruling party will hold a key meeting in early June to review the country’s economic plans, state media KCNA reported on Monday.

The meeting will review the implementation of the country’s national economic plans in the first half of 2023 and discuss “policy issues of weighty significance” in the development of its revolution, the report said.

It will mark the 8th Plenary Meeting of the 8th Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK), the country’s ruling party.

The last plenary meeting was held in February to discuss improving the economy and agricultural sector amid fears of food shortages.

North Korea also criticized recent joint military drills between the U.S. and South Korea as “dangerous war gambles” in a separate commentary carried by KCNA also on Monday.

“It is no exaggeration to say that the war scenario for aggression on the DPRK has already entered its implementation stage through training stage,” the commentary read.

The criticism comes after the two countries kicked off a series of combined military exercises on Thursday, the first of their kind since 2017.

Dubbed as the Combined Joint Live-Fire Exercise, Thursday’s military drills involved some 2,500 troops from 71 units and around 600 military assets mobilized by the allies just 25 kilometers (16 miles) south of the inter-Korean border to demonstrate their military capability amid North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats.