North Korea touts nuclear advances as Kim Jong Un rechosen to lead ruling party

SEOUL – North Korea’s ruling party touted nuclear advances as it re-elected Mr Kim Jong Un to the top post of general secretary, state media said on Feb 23, during a rare national congress.

Thousands of party elites have packed the capital Pyongyang for a once-in-five-years summit of the ruling Workers’ Party, a gathering that directs state efforts on everything from diplomacy to war planning.

The congress offers a rare glimpse into the political workings of reclusive North Korea and is widely seen as a forum for Mr Kim to flex his grip on power.

The military top brass made a “pledge of loyalty” to Mr Kim, the Korean Central News Agency said, as delegates rubber-stamped his re-election as general secretary on Feb 22.

The congress singled out Mr Kim’s efforts to keep unnamed foes at bay by “radically” improving its “nuclear forces”.

“He has energetically led the work to turn the Korean People’s Army, the pivot of national defence and pillar of safeguarding peace, into an elite and powerful army,” read a party statement. He has built revolutionary armed forces “capable of coping with any threat of aggression on their own initiative and fully prepared for any form of war”, the statement added.

Chinese President Xi Jinping hailed a “new chapter” in relations with North Korea after Mr Kim’s re-election.

In a striking display of his elevated status on the world stage,

Mr Kim appeared alongside Mr Xi

and Russian President Vladimir Putin at a military parade in Beijing in 2025.

Mr Kim is expected to unveil the next phase in North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme later in the days-long congress.

Under Mr Kim, North Korea’s nuclear arsenal has been transformed from a source of mild global concern to something treated as a genuine threat.

It has been more than eight years since North Korea’s last nuclear test triggered a man-made earthquake underneath the northern Hamgyong mountains.

Pyongyang’s atomic scientists have worked since then to harness this power in portable warheads that can be attached to long-range missiles.

Mr Kim unveiled a battery of huge nuclear-capable rocket launchers just days before the congress opened.

Friend or foe

Photos released by state media showed dozens of launch vehicles parked in neat rows on the plaza of Pyongyang’s House of Culture.

It is just the ninth time the Workers’ Party congress has convened under North Korea’s decades-spanning Kim rule.

The meeting was shelved for decades under Mr Kim’s father Kim Jong Il, but was revived in 2016.

Analysts will scour photographs to see which officials are seated closest to Mr Kim Jong Un and who is banished to the back row.

Particular attention will be placed on the whereabouts of Mr Kim’s teenage daughter Ju Ae, who has emerged as

North Korea’s heir apparent

, according to Seoul’s national intelligence service.

At the previous congress five years ago, Mr Kim declared that the US was his nation’s “biggest enemy”.

There is keen interest in whether Mr Kim might use the congress to soften this stance or double down.

US President Donald Trump stepped up his courtship of Mr Kim during a tour of Asia in 2025, saying he was “100 per cent” open to a meeting. Mr Kim has so far largely shunned efforts to resume top-level diplomatic dialogue. AFP