Seoul, June 7 (DPA) North Korea Monday replaced its Prime Minister Kim Yong Il with Choe Yong Rim, South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency said, quoting North Korean state radio.
Choe is chief secretary of the Pyongyang branch of the Workers Party, the ruling communist party, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said, confirming the report.
No reason was given for the change.
The replacement was announced at a rare second parliamentary session in a year. It was attended by regime leader Kim Jong Il as tensions on the Korean Peninsula have risen over the March sinking off a South Korean warship blamed on Pyongyang.
Kim Jong Il promoted his brother-in-law, Jang Song Thaek, to become vice chief of the National Defence Commission, the Stalinist state’s top decision-making body, which is chaired by Kim himself, Yonhap quoted KCNA as saying.
Analysts said the promotion of Jang, who heads a Workers Party department, was part of engineering a hereditary power succession to Kim Jong Il’s youngest son, Kim Jong Un.
Kim Jong Il had not been present at 2010’s first parliamentary session in April. North Korea’s 687-member parliament rubber-stamps the regime’s decisions.
