SEOUL - North Korea's parliament will hold its annual meeting on April 9, state media announced Saturday.

The Korean Central News Agency gave no more details of the upcoming session. The rubber-stamp Supreme People's Assembly normally meets once a year to endorse bills put forward by the ruling communist party.

Leader Kim Jong-II attended last year's session, which re-elected him to the country's most powerful post, chairman of the National Defence Commission.

Legislators will meet this year as diplomatic efforts intensify to bring the North back to six-nation nuclear disarmament negotiations, which it quit last April.