North Korean leader Kim Jong Un bemoaned economic “hardships” but expressed optimism about the direction of state policies at the end of a major party meeting, after retreating with hundreds of top officials to a remote mountain over the weekend.

State media’s final report on the four-day plenum released Tuesday focused on ideological and economic problems but made no mention of new foreign policy pronouncements, after Kim and Vladimir Putin signed a new mutual defense pact in Pyongyang last month.

Kim said North Koreans face “quite a few obstacles and difficulties in the state work and social life as