ISTANBUL

North Korea’s ruling party has convened its top congress, which meets once every five years, state media reported Friday.

The ninth congress of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) opened Thursday in Pyongyang, considered the capital of the “Korean revolution,” Korea Central News Agency reported.

Led by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, about 5,000 party delegates are attending the gathering, which typically spans several days.

As the country’s highest decision-making body, the congress sets five-year policy directions. Key decisions on the economy, defense and diplomacy, as well as major personnel appointments, are reviewed at the meeting. The previous congress was held in 2021.

In his opening address, Kim described the five years since the eighth WPK congress as a “proud period” in the nation’s history, during which “we achieved so great successes despite the severity of trials and difficulties.”

Observers are closely monitoring the outcome of the congress amid developments in inter-Korean relations, North Korea’s nuclear weapons program and any potential diplomatic engagement with the US.

“When we convened the eighth party congress, the subjective and objective conditions of our revolution were literally so harsh that we could hardly maintain our own existence,” Kim said.

“The hostile forces grew more reckless in their schemes for harsh blockade and sanctions against us,” he added, noting that the country also faced successive natural disasters and the global public health crisis, referring to COVID-19.

This, he said, “severely hindered the development of all our sectors, and it also seriously threatened the security of our state and the safety of our people.”

Kim stated that the WPK “is faced with heavy and urgent historic tasks of boosting economic construction and the people's standard of living and transforming all realms of state and social life as early as possible.”

“This requires us to wage a more active and persistent struggle without allowing even a moment's standstill or stagnation,” he said, underscoring a new long-term regional development plan.