Speculation is mounting over North Korea’s key party congress opening early this week, following leader Kim Jong-un writing the public a rare New Year’s letter carried by state media on Friday.

In the letter, Kim thanked North Koreans for their enduring trust and support in difficult times and vowed to bring closer a period when they see their ideals and desires realized.

The Korean Central News Agency said the letter was penned by Kim, who has given a televised New Year’s speech every year since 2013. He succeeded his father, Kim Jong-il, in 2012.

The last time a North Korean leader addressed the public with such a letter was in 1995. Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-un’s grandfather and the country’s founder, died the previous year.

Kim Jong-un is facing the toughest challenges of his nine-year rule, as he looks to set new economic and foreign policies at a party congress slated for early January. The economy is ravaged by the pandemic, massive summer floods and the US-led sanctions, though the regime still reports zero coronavirus cases.

North Korea and the US remain in a stalemate over denuclearization, with Pyongyang unusually reticent on the incoming Joe Biden administration.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Dec. 31 that North Korea’s Berlin ambassador and the head of the European Parliament delegation had held an online meeting in early December where North Korea discussed forging a strong relationship with the US, as long as Washington abandons its anti-Pyongyang policy.

North Korea reached out to a European Parliament committee handling inter-Korean affairs days before the US election in November, the report added.

Washington and Pyongyang enjoyed a short-lived detente from their Singapore summit in June 2018 until their Hanoi summit in February 2019, when the two leaders failed to work out differences over which steps to take first before dismantling Kim’s nuclear arsenal.

The two countries have since fallen short of hashing out a deal, despite working level talks that followed.

North Korean watchers say the diplomatic impasse will not be resolved soon, as the Biden administration is just as invested in domestic affairs as Kim and is less incentivized to quickly hammer out a solution to the longstanding inter-Korean challenge.

By Choi Si-young (siyoungchoi@heraldcorp.com)