Roundtable: What we learned from North Korea’s Ninth Party Congress
North Korea News Podcast by NK NewsShow Notes
In this special roundtable edition of the NK News podcast, the team sits down to discuss the results of North Korea’s Ninth Party Congress, the messaging behind the latest parade in Pyongyang and what leadership reshuffles may signal for the country’s domestic and foreign policy direction.
The panel explores why this congress focused less on major course corrections and more on reinforcing Kim Jong Un’s leadership, embedding his priorities more deeply in party structures and and strengthening elite discipline.
They also discuss how North Korea further hardened its stance toward South Korea, and scrutinize the congress’s relatively vague language on future weapons development.
Featured in this episode are:
Korea Risk Group Executive Director Jeongmin Kim NK News Senior Analytical Correspondent Colin Zwirko NK News Lead Correspondent Shreyas Reddy
About the podcast: The North Korea News Podcast is a weekly podcast hosted by Jacco Zwetsloot exclusively for NK News, covering all things DPRK — from news to extended interviews with leading experts and analysts in the field, along with insights from our very own journalists.
More from North Korea News Podcast by NK News
Editor’s note: This interview was recorded in July 2026. Some references to recent events and political developments reflect the situation at the time of recording and may differ from subsequent developments.
NK News Correspondent Joon Ha Park joins the podcast this week to discuss his exclusive interview with Canada’s Chief of the Defense Staff Gen. Jennie Carignan on what North Korea is gaining from its military cooperation with Russia and how Canada could help South Korea prepare for emerging security threats.
Edward Goldring, senior lecturer in political science at the University of Melbourne and author of the new book “Purges: How Dictators Fight to Survive,” joins the podcast to discuss why authoritarian leaders remove senior officials and what those purges can reveal about political survival.
NK News Correspondent Joon Ha Park and Michael Bosack, former deputy secretary of the U.N. Command Military Armistice Commission, join the podcast this week to discuss the Sept. 21 landmine explosion in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), what investigators have established about the North Korean mine involved and why questions remain over how it ended up south of the Military Demarcation Line (MDL).
NK News Data Correspondent Anton Sokolin and Lead Correspondent Shreyas Reddy join the podcast this week to discuss Russia’s new ambassador to North Korea, Pyongyang’s latest cyber operations and the growing dispute between Seoul and Kyiv over two North Korean prisoners of war.