DPRK vows to improve external ties

PYONGYANG－Kim Jong-un, the top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, vowed to further improve the country's social system and foreign relations in an address to the congress of the ruling party, the official Korean Central News Agency reported on Friday.

Kim suggested practical ways to give full play to the advantages of the country's social system, as he reported to the third-day session of the eighth congress of the Workers' Party of Korea on Thursday.

In his report reviewing the work of the ruling party's seventh Central Committee, Kim analyzed and evaluated in depth the shortcomings exposed and lessons drawn from work in the past five years, setting forth "directions and ways for opening up a fresh golden age" by carrying out reforms in such fields as "education, public health, literature and arts", the KCNA reported.

During the session, Kim and the congress attendees also doubled down on the WPK's general stance to comprehensively expand the country's external relations, including its ties with the Republic of Korea, the KCNA added.

DPRK-ROK relations went cold from June 2020 after Pyongyang demolished an inter-Korean liaison office in the border town of Kaesong in retaliation for Seoul's failure to stop activists from sending anti-DPRK leaflets into the northern neighbor.

The DPRK opened the eighth party congress on Tuesday amid expectations of a new five-year economic development plan and new policies on a relationship with the United States after US President-elect Joe Biden is sworn in on Jan 20.

Xinhua