[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Ji-eun] There is speculation that the Supreme People's Assembly meeting, which North Korea had announced would be held on the 6th, may have been postponed or held over multiple days, as no related articles were reported on the morning of the 7th.
As of 8 a.m. that day, North Korea's state media, including the Korean Central News Agency and Rodong Sinmun, had not reported any articles related to the Supreme People's Assembly.
North Korea had announced at the plenary meeting of the Standing Committee of the Supreme People's Assembly on December 15 last year that the 6th plenary session of the 14th Supreme People's Assembly would be held on February 6 this year. Given the characteristic of North Korean media to report the event the day after it occurs, related reports should have appeared on the morning of the 7th, but the state media did not mention anything about the Supreme People's Assembly.
Accordingly, there is an interpretation that the meeting may have been postponed by one or two days. In 2020, North Korea also announced that the Supreme People's Assembly would be held on April 10 but later revealed on April 12, two days after the scheduled date, that the meeting had been postponed. Professor Yang Moo-jin of the University of North Korean Studies analyzed, "Usually, a Politburo meeting is held one to two days before the Supreme People's Assembly, but since there was no mention of this, it is possible that the Politburo met yesterday and postponed the Supreme People's Assembly by one or two days." There is also speculation that the meeting was held, but the publication timing in state media was delayed due to the recorded broadcast of General Secretary Kim Jong-un's policy speech.
There is also the possibility that the Supreme People's Assembly was held over two consecutive days, and related content will be reported all at once on the 8th instead of the 7th. In the past, North Korea has held the Supreme People's Assembly over two consecutive days. On September 28 last year, the first day of the 5th session of the 14th Supreme People's Assembly was held, followed by the second day the next day, and it was reported on the 30th that General Secretary Kim gave a policy speech on the second day.
The final possibility is that the meeting was postponed for more than a month due to General Secretary Kim's schedule or the COVID-19 situation. North Korea also announced in March 2005 that it would hold the 3rd session of the 11th Supreme People's Assembly but postponed it by a month due to avian influenza.
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