North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has berated top officials for failures in coronavirus prevention that caused a "great crisis", using strong language that raised the specter of a mass outbreak in a country that would be scarcely able to handle it.
The state media report on Wednesday did not specify what "crucial" lapse had prompted Kim to call the politburo meeting of the ruling Workers' Party, but experts said the North could be wrestling with a significant setback in its pandemic fight.
So far, North Korea has claimed to have had no coronavirus infections, despite testing thousands of people and sharing a porous border with China. Experts widely doubt the claim and are concerned about any potential outbreak, given the country's poor health infrastructure.
At the politburo meeting, Kim criticized the senior officials for supposed incompetence, irresponsibility and passiveness in planning and executing anti-virus measures amid the lengthening pandemic, the North's official Korean Central News Agency said.
Kim said "senior officials in charge of important state affairs neglected the implementation of the important decisions of the party on taking organizational, institutional, material, scientific and technological measures as required by the prolonged state emergency epidemic prevention campaign, " according to the KCNA. This "caused a crucial case of creating a great crisis in ensuring the security of the state and safety of the people and entailed grave consequences. "
The report also said the party recalled an unspecified member of the politburo's powerful presidium, which consists of Kim and four other top officials.
The reference indicated Kim may replace his Cabinet Premier Kim Tok Hun, who would be held responsible for failures in the government's anti-epidemic work, said Hong Min, a senior analyst at Seoul's Korea Institute for National Unification.
"There is no possibility that North Korea will ever admit to an infection - even if there were mass transmissions, the North will definitely not reveal such developments and will continue to push forward an anti-virus campaign it has claimed to be the greatest, " Hong said.
"But it's also clear that something significant happened and it was big enough to warrant a reprimanding of senior officials. This could mean mass infections or some sort of situation where a lot of people were put at direct risk of infections. "
From the start of the pandemic, North Korea described its anti-virus efforts as a "matter of national existence, " banned tourists, jetted out diplomats and severely curtailed cross-border traffic and trade. The lockdown has further strained an economy already battered by decades of mismanagement and crippling US-led sanctions over the country's nuclear weapons program.
North
Korean leader Kim
Jong Un
has berated top
officials
for failures in coronavirus prevention that caused a
"
great crisis
"
, using strong language that raised the specter of a mass outbreak in a country that would be
scarcely
able to handle it.
The
state
media report on Wednesday did not specify what
"
crucial
"
lapse had prompted Kim to call the politburo meeting of the ruling Workers' Party,
but
experts said the
North
could be wrestling with a significant setback in its pandemic fight.
So
far,
North
Korea has claimed to have had no coronavirus
infections
, despite testing thousands of
people
and sharing a porous border with China. Experts
widely
doubt the claim and
are concerned
about any potential outbreak,
given
the country's poor health infrastructure.
At the politburo meeting, Kim criticized the
senior
officials
for supposed incompetence, irresponsibility and passiveness in planning and executing anti-virus measures amid the lengthening pandemic, the North's
official
Korean Central News Agency said.
Kim said
"
senior
officials
in charge of
important
state
affairs neglected the implementation of the
important
decisions of the party on taking organizational, institutional, material, scientific and technological measures as required by the prolonged
state
emergency epidemic prevention campaign,
"
according to the
KCNA
. This
"
caused a crucial case of creating a great crisis in ensuring the security of the
state
and safety of the
people
and entailed grave consequences.
"
The report
also
said the party recalled an unspecified member of the politburo's powerful presidium, which consists of Kim and four other top officials.
The reference indicated Kim may replace his Cabinet Premier Kim
Tok
Hun, who would
be held
responsible for failures in the
government
's anti-epidemic work, said Hong Min, a
senior
analyst at Seoul's Korea Institute for National Unification.
"
There is no possibility that
North
Korea will ever admit to an
infection
-
even if there were mass transmissions, the
North
will definitely not reveal such developments and will continue to push forward an anti-virus campaign it has claimed to be the greatest,
"
Hong said.
"
But
it's
also
clear
that something significant happened and it was
big
enough
to warrant a reprimanding of
senior
officials
. This could mean mass
infections
or
some
sort of situation where
a lot of
people
were put
at direct
risk
of
infections
.
"
From the
start
of the pandemic,
North
Korea
described
its anti-virus efforts as a
"
matter of national existence,
"
banned tourists, jetted out diplomats and
severely
curtailed cross-border traffic and trade. The lockdown has
further
strained an economy already battered by decades of mismanagement and crippling US-led sanctions over the country's nuclear weapons program.