North Korean general No Gwang-chol was appointed as defense minister during an important parliamentary session this week, Agence France-Presse reported, citing North Korean state media, as quoted by BTA.
But, who is an army general, already served as defense minister between 2018 and 2019. He will succeed Kang Soon-nam in the post, with North Korea's state-run KCTA news agency giving no further details on the change.
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A new minister of the People's Armed Forces, No Gwang-chol, accompanied leader Kim Jong-un during meetings with former US President Donald Trump in Singapore in 2018 and in Vietnam the following year.
Earlier this year, Kim Jong-un ordered the removal of clauses in the constitution related to Korean reunification and dissolved the agencies responsible for improving ties with South Korea. However, the KCTA did not mention these changes during the session of the Supreme National Assembly, which ended yesterday, AFP recalls.
In addition, this week Kim Jong-un said that Pyongyang "has no intention of attacking the Republic of Korea" (South Korea's official name), which some analysts saw as a softening of North Korea's rhetoric.
Analyst Hong Min of the Korea Institute for National Unification commented that North Korea may be waiting for the results of the US election in November before formally changing its position towards Seoul, which is an ally of Washington. He said North Korean leaders may consider tweaking the constitutional changes to accommodate the direction of the new US administration.