A Chinese special envoy of President Xi Jinping is slated to visit North Korea this week, the DPRK’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) and Chinese media reported on Wednesday.

“Song Tao, head of the International Liaison Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, will soon visit the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea,” KCNA said in an English-language dispatch.

China’s Xinhua news agency on Wednesday said Song will leave for the DPRK on Friday to give North Korean officials a briefing on October’s 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC).

It is not said