NK likely to complete power transfer this week

North Korea is expected to complete the power transfer to its new leader Kim Jong-un through a series of key political events in coming days that will culminate in a rocket launch, experts said Monday.

Kim has become the supreme commander of the 1.2 million-strong military as he took over the communist country following the December death of his father Kim Jong-il.

The new leader appears likely to become the general secretary of the Workers' Party in a party conference on Wednesday, a key post held by his late father, said Cheong Seong-chang, a senior research fellow at the Sejong Institute, a private security think tank near Seoul.

Kim's ascension to the post will automatically make him chairman of the party's Central Military Commission under party regulations, Cheong said.

Currently, Kim is the commission's vice chairman, a title he received during the previous party conference in September 2010, the North's biggest political gathering in 44 years.

Cheong also said he expected the North Korean leader to become either the chairman of the National Defense Commission, once headed by his father, or the head of a newly created post during a separate parliamentary session on Friday.

Kim's possible promotions "mean that his power succession will be officially concluded this week," Cheong said.

Kim Kap-sik, an analyst of the National Assembly Research Service, also predicted that the North Korean leader could assume all key vacant posts following his father's demise.

Still, a South Korean official handling North Korean affairs called for caution, noting Kim Jong-il took over the post of the party's general secretary in 1997, three years after the death of his father Kim Il-sung, the country's founder. The South Korean official asked not to be identified, citing policy.

The political meetings come amid tensions over Pyongyang's planned long-range rocket launch.

The North has claimed that the launch set for sometime between Thursday and Monday is designed to put a satellite into orbit, a move widely seen as a pretext to disguise a banned test of its ballistic missile technology.

The rocket launch is timed to celebrate the April 15 centennial of the birth of North Korea's founder, grandfather of current leader Kim Jong-un.

The North Korean leader is expected to display the completion of another hereditary power succession to the world through the milestone anniversary and the rocket launch.

Kim Jong-un is expected to "further consolidate his power through various political events," said Chung Young-chul, a professor of Sogang University. (Yonhap)