North Korea Leadership Announces Sept. 28 Meeting
The New York Times reports:
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea announced on Tuesday that the ruling Workers’ Party would hold a major gathering next week, the first such congress in 30 years and a meeting that could signal the formal designation of Kim Jong-il’s youngest son as his heir apparent.
North Korea said the conference to elect the communist state’s “supreme leadership body” would be held in the capital, Pyongyang, on Sept. 28.
“It’s not 100 percent certain, because North Korea remains a very special country, but I would say it’s 99 percent sure that Kim Jong-un will be confirmed as the successor,” said Andrei Lankov, a North Korea expert at Kookmin University in Seoul. “He will be presented to the party and the people on the 28th as ‘the new genius of leadership, the guiding star of the 21st century,’ something like that.”
Mr. Lankov and other analysts said the younger Mr. Kim will likely be given a Politburo post and perhaps a senior position in the government, although they did not expect he would be named as chairman of the all-powerful National Defense Commission.
A parade and public gatherings are not expected in the North to celebrate Kim Jong-un’s emergence, analysts said, although his official portrait would perhaps soon be appearing in North Korean shops, offices, homes and public places. Poems and songs also will start to be heard, Mr. Lankov said, “along with stories about his greatness.”
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