North Korea announces first party congress since 2021, Kim succession plan expected

Nevin Al Sukari - Sana'a - North Korean leader Kim Jong Un inspects the Samgwang Stockbreeding Farm in North Pyongan Province in this image released on February 3, 2026. — AFP pic

SEOUL, Feb 8 — North Korea’s leadership will hold a party congress later this month, state media announced Sunday, in what will be the first such major gathering since 2021.

The decision was made Saturday in a meeting of top leaders of the country’s ruling Workers Party of Korea (WPK), including Kim Jong Un, the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported.

“The Political Bureau of the WPK Central Committee adopted with unanimous approval a decision on opening the Ninth Congress of the WPK in Pyongyang, the capital of the revolution, in late February 2026,” KCNA said.

The last party congress – the reclusive nuclear-armed nation’s eighth – was held in January 2021.

At that gathering, Kim was named the party’s General Secretary, a title previously reserved for his father and predecessor Kim Jong Il, in what analysts said was a move to reinforce his authority.

The congress is the ruling party’s top gathering, a grand political set-piece that reinforces the regime’s authority and can serve as a platform for announcements of policy shifts or elite personnel changes.

The 2021 meeting came just days before the inauguration of US president Joe Biden and at the height of North Korea’s strict border closures during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Analysts described the choreographed messaging from the party congress as one of defiance toward the United States, after the breakdown in negotiations with Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump.

Trump, who returned to power in January 2025, has expressed willingness to restart talks, but yet with little result.

Tensions have meanwhile remained high, with Pyongyang most recently outraged over South Korea’s moves to develop nuclear submarine technology with the United States.

Since the 2021 gathering, North Korea has continued to develop its nuclear arsenal, repeatedly test-launching intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) in defiance of bans ordered by the UN Security Council.

Late last month, Kim oversaw the test launch of missiles from a multiple rocket launcher and said that “next-stage plans for further bolstering up the country’s nuclear war deterrent” would be clarified at the upcoming party congress, according to KCNA.

Lee Ho-ryung, principal researcher at the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, told AFP the upcoming congress would likely see Kim announce “that the goal is now to maximise nuclear operational prowess”.

“Kim Jong Un has used past party congresses to stress the completion of the country’s nuclear capability, and this time he is expected to declare that such capability has now reached its peak,” she said.

Kim was accompanied at the test by his daughter Ju Ae, believed to be his likely successor.

Pyongyang has also developed deep ties with Moscow during its war in Ukraine, with North Korean soldiers sent to fight alongside Russian forces.

In 2024, the two countries signed a treaty including a mutual defence clause. — AFP