N. Korea says Chinese delegation will attend its key anniversary

A delegation of China's Communist Party will attend a ceremony marking the foundation of North Korea's Workers' Party, North Korean media reported Sunday, amid concerns Pyongyang may try to mark the key anniversary with actions that may very well be taken by the international community as provocations.

In a short dispatch from Pyongyang, the North's official Korean Central News Agency said a Chinese delegation headed by Liu Yunshan, member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China, will attend the ceremony marking the Oct. 10 anniversary.

"A delegation of the Communist Party of China...will take part in the celebrations of the 70th founding anniversary of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) and pay an official goodwill visit to the DPRK at the invitation of the Central Committee of the WPK," it said. DPRK stands for the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

The report comes amid mounting concerns that the communist North may further escalate tension on and around the Korean Peninsula by launching long-range missiles or conducting a new and its fourth nuclear test around its anniversary.

Pyongyang has said it planned to launch a space rocket carrying a satellite, but Seoul and many others believe it will only be a cover for a long-range missile test.

China, the North's only military ally, has also voiced its opposition against any North Korean rocket launch when its President Xi Jinping and his South Korean counterpart Park Geun-hye jointly "voiced opposition to any act that could escalate tensions" in a summit early September.

Under U.N. sanctions that followed the North's two latest nuclear tests in 2009 and 2013, Pyongyang is prohibited from conducting any missile launches, including space rockets.

In a report submitted to the parliamentary defense committee ahead of his confirmation hearing, South Korea's nominee for new chairman of its Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Lee Sun-jin said the North was expected to make fresh provocations that could include an attack against South Korean naval ships before or after the anniversary of its communist party. (Yonhap)