North Korea’s central ruling party government complex in Pyongyang has seen additional new construction and upgrades following last year’s large-scale work at the site, recent satellite imagery has revealed.

The construction of a new large building, which is still ongoing, began in February with the demolition of what has been previously identified as a private medical clinic for the late leader Kim Jong Il.

It comes as North Korea is set to hold a Supreme People’s Assembly (SPA) meeting this Friday and speculation over additional Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) meetings to coincide with that event.

In the above image, rapid changes are visible on and beside the WPK Central Committee (CC) buildings between February 3 and April 6, with primary construction taking place on the new building replacing what may have been a private clinic for use by the DPRK leadership.

Daily medium-resolution satellite imagery provided by Planet Labs and reviewed by NK Pro reveal that the old building was demolished between February 11-23.

Work on the new building in its place then began in early March, the imagery suggests.

By the April 6 high-resolution image seen above, a much larger building appears, based on the roof structure, with multiple rooms or separate areas already built to an advanced stage.

Construction on the building appears to be ongoing.

There also seems to have been construction work done in recent months in the courtyard between the main WPK CC building — often presented as hosting Kim Jong Un’s late-night office in state media — and the CC assembly hall next door.

It is difficult to determine from the imagery, however, if a new covering has been installed over the courtyard or if landscaping first installed there last summer has simply been removed again, though the length of the CC building’s shadow suggests the former. 

Upcoming events on site?

The SPA session scheduled to be held this Friday is expected to take place at the Mansudae Assembly Hall a few blocks to the north, but, as NK Pro senior analyst Rachel Minyoung Lee wrote last week, the WPK CC could hold a meeting in the party complex this week as well.

The last WPK plenary meeting (plenum) was held over four days in late December, but one was also held last April just one day before the SPA session. Lee said that such meeting “was held one or two days before three out of 11 SPA sessions held under Kim Jong Un.”

Any meeting in the WPK complex may depend on the ongoing construction, though there are plenty of areas where top officials could meet following the construction last year of three large new buildings just across the street from the new work site. 

That construction began in late 2018 and appeared to have largely finished just ahead of the April plenum and enlarged Politburo meeting that was held the day before.

As for the new large building currently under construction next to the WPK CC assembly hall, it will likely require high-level sources to eventually determine its true purpose.

Images of the WPK complex have historically been highly restricted by North Korean authorities, with state media altering photos to cover its buildings with trees.

More recently, DPRK authorities appear to have taken drastic measures starting in 2019 to block all direct views of the complex, even entering resident apartments to forcefully install window coverings overlooking the buildings from close and far range.

NK Pro was also not able to independently confirm the claim that the old building demolished to make way for the new construction was Kim Jong Il’s personal clinic.

That label, however, has appeared in maps from expert researchers Curtis Melvin of North Korea Economy Watch and Michael Madden’s North Korea Leadership Watch, with the former sourced from Japanese journalist Eya Osamu’s writing in 2003.

If the new construction is indeed related to upgrading private medical facilities for Kim Jong Un, the project will have coincided with the beginning another, larger medical facility across town.

This is the Pyongyang General Hospital — North Korea’s primary new construction project — which NK News revealed started in late January and which is also seeing rapid progress in recent weeks.

Meanwhile, North Korea is also set to put on major events for the April 15 birthday of founding leader Kim Il Sung — known as the Day of the Sun — though they are expected to be scaled down due to the ongoing ban on tourism and other strict domestic restrictions related to COVID-19 prevention measures.

Edited by Oliver Hotham