hankyoreh

North Korea will convene an annual session of the Supreme People's Assembly, its rubber-stamp legislature, next month, the communist state's official news media reported Thursday.

"The 6th session of the 11th Supreme People's Assembly will be convened in Pyongyang on April 9," the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said, quoting a decision by the SPA Presidium.

The KCNA did not specify the agenda of the meeting, but the country's budget is expected to be the main topic.

North Korea has convened the SPA session every March or April to review the use of the previous year's budget and approve the one for the new year.

In addition, the meeting may involve discussion of ways to reconstruct the country's sagging economy by 2012, when the country will mark the 100th birthday of its late former leader Kim Il-sung.

Other topics may include the current war of nerves between Pyongyang and Washington over the former's declaration of its nuclear programs and inter-Korean ties that have cooled since the launch of a conservative South Korean government.

Pyongyang claims it disclosed its entire nuclear weapons arsenal before the year-end deadline set under a six-party deal last year, but Washington is still waiting for a "complete and accurate" list.

In the decision dated March 17, the SPA Presidium said parliamentary representatives must register at the Mansudae Assembly Hall in Pyongyang for two days from April 7 ahead of the session.

North Korea selected 687 delegates of the 11th-term SPA in August 2003 and opened the first session the next month to re-elect the country's leader Kim Jong-il as chairman of the powerful National Defense Commission (NDC).

Since the delegates' five-year term expires this year, North Korea is expected to organize the 12th SPA in the second half of the year and re-elect Kim to the NDC chairmanship.

SEOUL, March 20 (Yonhap)