Pyongyang may have named new defense chief

By Kim Hyo-jin

Pak Yong-sik

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un seems to have appointed a new defense chief following the death of Hyon Yong-chol, who was reportedly executed in March, according to North Korea experts.

“Based on Pyongyang’s media reports released today, Pak Yong-sik appears to have been appointed as the new defense minister,” Chang Yong-seok, a senior researcher at the Institute for Peace and Unification Studies at Seoul National University, told The Korea Times.

The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) listed top military figures who accompanied Kim Jong-un at the military’s art performance, Monday.

In the report, Pak was named just after Hwang Pyong-so, director of the general political department of the Korean People’s Army (KPA), now Kim’s top military aide. Ri Yong-gil, chief of the general staff of the KPA, was named after Pak.

Rodong Sinmun, a mouthpiece of the North’s ruling Workers’ Party, also published a photo of Pak sitting to the right to the young leader, with Hwang on the left.

The expert said the new sitting arrangement indicates that Pak has already been internally named as Hyon’s successor. But it has not been publicized yet because the leader has concerns about the aftermath of the execution, he said.

In May, Seoul’s spy agency, the National Intelligence Service, said that the North executed Hyon in late April with an anti-aircraft gun for showing disloyalty to Kim. Pyongyang has not made any announcement regarding a new appointment.

Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies, also agreed Pak has been promoted.

“In the photo released in late May, Pak was a four-star general, which provides a high possibility of his appointment as minister,” he said.

Pak, one-time three-star general, was known to be under the KPA's general political department with a title equivalent to vice minister.

Yang added, “In Kim’s field trip to a fish farm in a military camp, Pak greeted him there, which is only possible if Pak is in charge of the Ministry of the People’s Armed Forces.”

Andrei Lankov, a longtime North Korea watcher and professor at Kookmin University, said, “The assumption sounds reasonable.”

But he added that it can be only confirmed when North Korean official media mentions Pak as the minister of defense.

If confirmed, Pak becomes the sixth defense minister since Kim Jong-un took power in 2011.