N Korea party to meet before rocket launch

North Korea said Monday its ruling party would hold a special conference on April 11, cementing the power of its young leader just before a major anniversary and the planned launch of a long-range rocket. The meeting is expected to wrap up the power transfer to Kim Jong-Un before the 100th anniversary on April 15 of the birth of founding president Kim Il-Sung -- the present leader's grandfather. The rocket launch, purportedly to put a satellite into orbit, is set for sometime between April 12-16 to commemorate the anniversary. The United States, South Korea and many other nations see it as a pretext for a long-range missile test banned by the United Nations. Party committee meetings in the military, provinces, cities and counties elected Jong-Un as one of the conference delegates, "reflecting the unanimous will and desire of all the party members, service personnel and people", the official news agency said. Analysts say the Workers' Party of Korea meeting is likely to appoint Jong-Un to the post of party general secretary previously held by his father Kim Jong-Il, who died in December of a heart attack. Jong-Un has been proclaimed "great successor" but has so far been formally appointed to only one of his late father's posts, that of supreme commander of the 1.2 million-strong military. Separately, the North will convene an annual session of its rubber-stamp parliament on April 13. The parliament has the power to appoint a chairman of the National Defence Commission, the top decision-making body in the highly militarised state. Kim Jong-Il previously chaired the commission. It was unclear whether his son would take over the post. The North's disclosure of its satellite plan came just over two weeks after the announcement of a deal with the United States. The North agreed to suspend operations at its Yongbyon uranium enrichment plant, and impose a moratorium on long-range missile tests and nuclear tests, in return for 240,000 tonnes of food aid. Washington said last week it is suspending plans to start food deliveries since it can no longer trust the North to stick to arrangements on monitoring distribution. Pyongyang, which insists that a satellite launch is not a missile test, criticised the US move Saturday as an "over-reaction" that would kill off the February 29 agreement. A North Korean foreign ministry spokesman said Washington had previously insisted that it made no link between humanitarian and political issues. But it had responded to the "planned satellite launch with the announcement to stop following through on its commitment to food aid", the spokesman continued. "This would be a regrettable act of scrapping the DPRK (North Korea)-US agreement in its entirety as it is a violation of the core articles of the February 29 DPRK-US agreement."