North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has chaired a Political Bureau meeting on the COVID-19 response, pointing to "some faults" in efforts to halt the spread of the virus, state media reported on Wednesday, following the recent shooting of a South Korean official and apparent burning of his body as an anti-coronavirus measure
SEOUL (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 30th September, 2020) North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has chaired a Political Bureau meeting on the COVID-19 response, pointing to "some faults" in efforts to halt the spread of the virus, state media reported on Wednesday, following the recent shooting of a South Korean official and apparent burning of his body as an anti-coronavirus measure.
The 18th meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea took place on Tuesday.
"The meeting pointed out some faults found in preventing the inroads of the malignant virus and had an in-depth study and discussion about the issues on further intensifying the state emergency anti-epidemic work," the Chongnyon Jonwi newspaper said.
The gathering came after North Korean troops shot dead a South Korean fisheries official, who went missing while on duty in the waters near the South-North border, and set his body on fire. The man was believed to have made an attempt to defect to the North by jumping into the sea. Kim subsequently apologized to Seoul, promising to take steps to avoid such incidents in the future.
The Political Bureau meeting also warned against "self-complacency, carelessness, irresponsibility and slackness" in efforts to prevent the epidemic and called for maintaining a "steel-strong" implementation of all anti-COVID-19 measures in the country, which maintains zero infections on its soil.
In addition, the Political Bureau looked into events on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the party's founding and the progress in tackling the aftermath of typhoons that hit the peninsula in September.
