However a joint editorial in leading state media hinted that the hardline communist state could be ready to follow through on an international deal to scrap its nuclear weaponry.

The editorial, which sets out policy goals, called for efforts to fully utilise “the mental power of all the soldiers and people, which is more powerful than nuclear weapons.”

The 4,500-word summary carried by the Korean Central News Agency made no specific mention of a six-nation denuclearisation pact agreed in 2007 following the North’s atomic weapons test in 2006.

Pyongyang was supposed to have disabled its main atomic plants and declared all its nuclear programs by December 31 in return for one million tons of fuel oil or equivalent energy aid and diplomatic benefits.

The United States, Japan and South Korea — members of the negotiations along with Russia, China and the North itself — expressed disappointment at the missed deadline.

The State Department said its top nuclear envoy Christopher Hill was now expected to hold talks with officials from Japan, South Korea, China and Russia to chart the next steps.

The editorial hailed 2008, which will mark the country’s 60th anniversary, as “a year of historical turn which will go down in the history of the country.”

It added, without elaborating, that 2008 “is a year of gigantic struggle, a year of jubilation in the national history, when a great change will be brought about in the history of our country and our revolution.”

The editorial made dozens of references to the Songun or army-first policy, which prioritizes the welfare of the 1.1 million-strong military over civilians.

“We should constantly increase the military strength of our republic by holding fast to the party’s Songun-based revolutionary line,” it said.

“It is important to make the spirit of giving priority to military affairs prevail in the whole society, strengthen militias including the Worker-Peasant Red Guards and the Young Red Guards, and turn the whole country into an impregnable fortress.”

The editorial also called for “a general offensive to build an economic power. Today, the economy is the front of main efforts in the building of a great, prosperous and powerful nation.”

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