North Korea may seek a package deal with South Korea, including a push for summit talks, ahead of its key party congress next year, a report showed Wednesday.

The Workers' Party of Korea plans to hold its first congress in more than three decades in May next year when the North's leader Kim Jong-un is likely to unveil a new line of policies and conduct a major reshuffle.

"The possibility cannot be ruled out that the North may seek a package settlement, even including 'inter-Korean summit talks,' esulting from 'a bold decision' in order to buy time to make achievements before the 7th Party Congress," according to the report by South Korea's Institute for National Security Strategy.

The two Koreas failed to produce a breakthrough in their recent high-level talks, leaving the future of their ties murky.

Still, North Korea has the motivation to improve its relations with Seoul as it needs to establish noticeable feats for the occasion of the party event, according to the institute.

The report said that there is a possibility that North Korea will proclaim "a new way of unification" to use the party congress as a chance to promote Kim as the leader spearheading unification.

But it also said that there would not be substantial progress in inter-Korean ties if Pyongyang sticks to its inflexible stance toward the resumption of a suspended joint tour program at Mount Kumgang and Seoul's punitive sanctions against the North.

North Korea claimed that Seoul should immediately reopen the tour program as a precondition for discussing the South's push for regular reunions of families torn apart by the 1950-53 Korean War.

Seoul said that the two should be discussed separately.

The report said that next year will herald the true beginning of the Kim Jong-un era, calling 2016 "the year of the inflection point," for the North.

It added, however, the party congress could be a "double-edged sword" for North Korea if it ends without any practical achievements at a time when North Koreans' fatigue remains high amid collective mobilization for major projects and the reign of terror. (Yonhap)