{"id":42868,"date":"2026-02-23T12:45:04","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T07:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/?p=42868"},"modified":"2026-02-23T12:45:04","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T07:00:04","slug":"kim-reelected-to-top-post-of-north-koreas-ruling-party-as-it-hails-his-nuclear-buildup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/kim-reelected-to-top-post-of-north-koreas-ruling-party-as-it-hails-his-nuclear-buildup\/","title":{"rendered":"Kim reelected to top post of North Korea\u2019s ruling party as it hails his nuclear buildup"},"content":{"rendered":"
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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was reelected to the top post of the ruling Workers\u2019 Party, with delegates crediting him for bolstering the country\u2019s nuclear arsenal and strengthening its regional standing, state media reported Monday.<\/p>\n

The report from the party congress, a major propaganda spectacle where Kim is expected to outline his political and military goals for the next five years, suggests he will double down on accelerating a nuclear arsenal already equipped with missiles capable of threatening Asian U.S. allies and the American mainland.<\/p>\n

The party also released a new roster for its powerful Central Committee that confirmed a generational shift in Kim\u2019s leadership circle, with aging military chiefs and the 76-year-old head of Pyongyang\u2019s rubber-stamp parliament among dozens replaced in the 138-member body.<\/p>\n

The congress, which began last Thursday, comes as Kim grows increasingly assertive in regional politics, following an aggressive expansion of his nuclear arsenal and closer ties with Russia forged through joint war efforts in Ukraine, which have deepened his standoffs with Washington and Seoul. Kim has also pursued stronger ties with China, traveling to Beijing last September and having his first summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping in six years.<\/p>\n

Analysts say Kim will likely use the meeting to unveil new military goals, including strengthening conventional forces and integrating them with nuclear capabilities, while reemphasizing a campaign for economic \u201cself-reliance\u201d through mass mobilization, following gradual post-pandemic gains fueled by rebounding trade with China and arms exports to Russia.<\/p>\n

– Party credits Kim\u2019s leadership as a boost to national pride –<\/p>\n

North Korea\u2019s official Korean Central News Agency said Kim was reelected as the party\u2019s general secretary with the \u201cunshakable will and unanimous desire\u201d of thousands of delegates on the fourth day of meetings Sunday.<\/p>\n

Under party rules, the congress, which Kim has held every five years since 2016, elects the general secretary to serve as the party\u2019s top representative and leader. Kim, 42, has held the party\u2019s top post throughout his rule, though the title changed from first secretary to chairman at the congress in 2016 and then to general secretary at the congress in 2021.<\/p>\n

The party said in a statement that by building up nuclear forces, Kim has created a military capable of handling \u201cany threat of aggression\u201d and \u201cany form of war,\u201d and credited his leadership with \u201creliably guaranteeing\u201d the country\u2019s future and \u201cboosting the pride and self-esteem\u201d of North Koreans.<\/p>\n

It also praised Kim\u2019s recent foreign policy, which it said raised national prestige. China’s state-run Xinhua news agency said Xi congratulated Kim on his reelection.<\/p>\n

– Party\u2019s leadership reshuffle reflects generational shift –<\/p>\n

KCNA said the congress adopted revisions to party rules during Sunday\u2019s meeting but did not immediately provide details. Experts had anticipated that Kim would use the congress to entrench his hard-line stance toward South Korea and possibly rewrite party rules to codify his characterization of inter-Korean relations as between two \u201chostile\u201d states.<\/p>\n

State media so far haven\u2019t mentioned any comments by Kim or other senior leaders at the congress directly addressing relations with Washington and Seoul.<\/p>\n

Yoon Min Ho, a spokesperson at South Korea\u2019s Unification Ministry, described Kim\u2019s reelection as a predictable move to further burnish his leadership and that Seoul will closely watch further messages from the congress.<\/p>\n

The most notable change to the new Central Committee list was the exclusion of Choe Ryong Hae, chairman of the standing committee of the Supreme People\u2019s Assembly, who during an earlier part of Kim\u2019s rule was seen as the second most powerful individual in Pyongyang. Also left out were military marshals Pak Jong Chon and Ri Pyong Chol, who had rose in the leadership ranks while Kim sped up his nuclear development over the past decade.<\/p>\n

Yoon also noted the removal of senior officials who handled inter-Korean affairs, including Kim Yong Chol and Ri Son Gwon, who served key roles in carrying out Kim Jong Un\u2019s diplomacy with then-South Korean President Moon Jae-in and President Donald Trump in 2018 and 2019.<\/p>\n

North Korea has suspended all meaningful diplomacy with the United States and South Korea since the collapse of a 2019 summit between Kim Jong Un and Trump over disagreements about exchange sanctions relief for steps to wind down Kim\u2019s nuclear and missile program.<\/p>\n

Kim\u2019s government has rejected dialogue offers from Trump since the American president began his second term, urging Washington to drop its demand for North Korea\u2019s denuclearization as a precondition for talks. Inter-Korean relations further deteriorated in 2024 when Kim abandoned the North\u2019s long-standing goal of peaceful reunification and declared the war-divided South a permanent enemy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was reelected to the top post of the ruling Workers\u2019 Party, with delegates crediting him for bolstering the country\u2019s nuclear arsenal and strengthening its regional standing, state media reported Monday. The report from the party congress, a major propaganda spectacle where Kim is expected to outline his political and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4408,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42868"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42868"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42868\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42869,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42868\/revisions\/42869"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}