SEOUL: North Korea announced Wednesday that its first ruling party congress for nearly four decades will open on May 6, amid increasing concern that Pyongyang will preface the event with a fifth nuclear test.

Anticipation over the congress, the first since 1980, has been mounting since the North signalled its intentions to hold the gathering back in October last year.

Kim Jong-Un is expected to use the event to cement his position as supreme leader and to take credit for pushing his country’s nuclear weapons program to new heights.

No details have been provided of the itinerary, but it will be scrutinized for any key policy changes or reshuffles among the country’s elite.

The actual starting date had been a closely guarded secret prior to Wednesday’s announcement by the ruling party’s central committee politburo.

In a statement carried by the North’s official KCNA news agency, the politburo said the congress — only the seventh in the party’s history — would open May 6, but did not specify how long it would last.

The 1980 congress lasted four days. There has been growing speculation that North korea may carry out a fresh nuclear test just ahead of the event as a display of national pride and strength.

On Tuesday, South Korean President Park Geun-Hye said the North was understood to have “completed preparations” for a test, and could press the button at any time.

If North Korea does go ahead, it would constitute a dramatic act of defiance in the face of tough UN sanctions imposed after its most recent nuclear test in January.

Some analysts have suggested that, by carrying out a fifth test so soon after the fourth, the North might hope to avoid a heavy package of additional sanctions — but Park insisted that the international community’s response would be swift and severe.