JAKARTA - Japan and South Korea are ejected by a series of North Korea's ballistic missile tests. But that'success' actually made North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong Un remove his number 2 military official, Pak Jong Chon.
Quoted from Channel News Asia, Monday, January 2, North Korea reportedly just fired Mr. Jong Chon. Pak, deputy chairman of the ruling Labor Party Central Military Commission and secretary of the party's Central Committee, was replaced by Ri Yong Gil on Sunday, January 1 yesterday.
There is no need for a reason to change this. Pyongyang has regularly changed his leadership.
And the end of the year is often used to announce reshuffle of personnel and key policy decisions.
Television describes Pak being replaced, sitting in the front row of the podium with his head down during the meeting. While the other members raised their hands to vote on the staffing issue. His seat then looks empty.
He was also absent from the photo released on Monday by the official KCNA news agency about Kim's New Year's Day visit to the Kumsusan Sun Palace which houses the bodies of his grandfather and father, unlike in October when Pak accompanied Kim on his way to the palace to mark the anniversary.
The party's Central Military Commission, led by Kim, is considered the country's most powerful military decision-making body, above the defense ministry.
Pak is actually a rising star of North Korea. He quickly climbed the military ladder from the commander of the one-star artillery in 2015 to become a four-star general in 2020. He was also praised for contributing to the country's short-range missile technology advances.
At the end of 2020, Pak was promoted to a politburo and earned the tour title, the highest military rank under Kim, and became a prominent vote last November against joint South Korea-US military exercises.
Like most other top military aides who experienced ups and downs repeatedly under Kim, Pak was demoted in mid-2021 after Kim rebuked some officials for their handling of North Korea's anti-coronavirus policy, before being promoted again months later.
Pak's successor did feel strange. Moreover, previously, Kim Jong-un called for the development of a new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) and a larger nuclear arsenal to counter the threat led by the United States.
At the meeting of the ruling Labor Party, Leader Kim highlighted the need to secure "extraordinary military force", to defend its sovereignty and security.
Leader Kim accused Washington and Seoul of trying to "isolate and detain" Pyongyang, with US nuclear attack assets constantly deployed in South Korea, calling it "unprecedented in human history."
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