The deputy commander of the Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command, Army Gen. Jung Seung-jo, has been named the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, defense officials said Sunday.
In a major reshuffle of top military officers, Jung will replace Gen. Han Min-koo as Korea's top military officer, the officials said.
Kwon Oh-seong, the JCS officer in charge of operations, was named the new deputy commander of the Combined Forces Command while No.2 Navy officer Choi Yun-hee was designated to lead the Navy. Another Navy officer, Lee Ho-yeon, was tapped as the new commandant of the Marine Corps.
The Cabinet is expected to authorize the military reshuffle on Tuesday before President Lee Myung-bak formally appoints the officers to their new military positions.
The move comes as South Korea seeks defense reforms to build a stronger military amid lingering tensions with North Korea over two deadly attacks on the South last year.
In May, the Cabinet approved a set of defense reform bills that will make the military's command structure more efficient and give the JCS chairman more power over the Army, Navy and Air Force. The National Assembly has yet to endorse the bills.
The reshuffle comes as Korea prepares to take over wartime operational control of its military from the United States in 2015.
The U.S. has held wartime command of South Korean troops since the beginning of the 1950-53 Korean War, though it handed over peacetime control of the Korean military to Seoul in 1994.
The U.S. keeps some 28,500 troops in South Korea as a deterrent against North Korea, a legacy of the Korean War that ended in a cease-fire, not a peace treaty. (Yonhap)