Anchor: With four days remaining until North Korea's year-end deadline, a planned communist party meeting in Pyongyang is yet to be held while many participants are standing by for days to attend the key gathering. Analysts say the party meeting is expected to be held this weekend for North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to finalize his New Year's speech.  
Kim Bum-soo has more. 

Report: It was December fourth when North Korea said its communist party's central committee will hold a plenary session at the end of the month.

Around 200 key party officials are expected to attend the meeting, which North Korea said an important decision will be reached at.  

But with only four days left until the end of this year, there has not been any news reports of the party meeting. 

A diplomatic source told KBS that many North Korean officials did not return to their regions and are standing by in Pyongyang after attending a meeting of the party's Central Military Commission last Saturday.

The source said that a plenary session of the communist party's central committee had initially been expected to follow immediately. 

North Korea analysts say that the party meeting is likely to be held this weekend before North Korean leader Kim Jong-un delivers his New Year address on Wednesday.  

In his 2019 speech, Kim said that North Korea might have to take a new path if sanctions and pressure continue on his regime. 

Following the collapse of his second meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump in Hanoi in February, Kim set a year-end deadline for the U.S. to find a breakthrough in the stalled nuclear talks.With that deadline fast approaching, the Kim regime has insinuated that its nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile activities might resume as Trump’s foreign policy remains a work in progress.
Kim Bum-soo, KBS World Radio News.