North Korea’s top three military officials removed from their posts

Reuters report that North Korea’s top three military officials have been removed from their posts, a senior U.S. official said.

The move, analysts said, could support efforts by the North’s young leader to jump-start economic development and engage with the world.

Time quotes a report by the South Korean News Agency Yonhap which named the outgoing officials as defense minister Pak Yong Sik, Ri Myong Su, the Korean People’s Army’s (KPA) chief of the general staff, and Kim Jong Gak, director of the KPA’s General Political Bureau and former defense minister. The latter’s replacement was announced in North Korean state media last month.

“The North appears to have brought in new figures amid the changes in inter-Korean relations and the situation on the Korean Peninsula as the previous officials lacked flexibility in thinking,” the intelligence official told Yonhap, in particular identifying No Kwang-chol, the new defense minister, as a “moderate.”