North Korean ruling party members convene for rare meeting

Sep 6, 2010, 10:37 GMT

Seoul - Delegates of North Korea's ruling Workers Party were arriving in Pyongyang, state media reported Monday, as they prepared to attend a meeting that could, according to experts, herald a handover of power in the Stalinist country.

The meeting, for which no fixed date was known, was to bring together representatives from across the country, selected by recent elections.

It was the first such meeting since 1966 in the one-party state. At the previous meeting, Kim Jong Il's position was solidified as the next North Korean leader by his father, North Korea's founder, Kim Il Sung.

South Korean analysts said Kim Jong Il might be preparing to do the same for his third son, Kim Jong Un, at the upcoming meeting, which North Korea said would take place this month.

Speculation over Kim Jong Il's successor has swirled since the now-68-year-old leader was thought to have suffered a stroke two years ago.

Little is known about the youngest Kim other than he is believed to be in his late 20s and was schooled in Switzerland.

'Our delegates are entering the capital of revolution, Pyongyang,' the Rodong Sinmun, the North Korean party daily, said Monday, according to South Korea's Yonhap News Agency.

The meeting was likely to begin about two days after the delegates started arriving and last around a week, a South Korean government official was quoted anonymously as saying by Yonhap.

North Korea only reported on the 1966 meeting after it was over.