Kim Jong Un fires top general and tells his armed forces to prepare for war while displaying a map of South Korea to his military chiefs
- Kim met to discuss ‘the issue of making full war preparations’ on Wednesday
North Korean despot Kim Jong Un has replaced his top military general and called for expanded preparations for the possibility of war, state media has reported.
Pak Su Il, North Korea’s Chief of the General Staff, was ‘dismissed’ after about seven months in the role, Korean Central News Agency reported without elaborating.
He will be replaced by General Ri Yong Gil, a previous army chief of staff. It is unclear whether he will continue in his role as defence minister.
Meeting with the Central Military Commission today, Kim also called for expanded military production, the testing of new equipment and ‘actual war drills’.
KCNA said conversations with the Commission this week were to talk through the ‘issue of making full war preparations’ to ensure ‘perfect military readiness for war’.
Photos of today’s meeting published by state media showed Kim apparently pointing to spots around Seoul, South Korea’s largest city, where 51 million people live.
The change in gears comes as the United States and South Korea prepare for a large-scale combined military exercise.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un appears to point to a map (blurred at source) of the Korean Peninsula during talks about war readiness, in Pyongyang, North Korea, August 9, 2023
Kim (seated at the head of the table) meets with the Central Military Commission on 9 August
State media said Thursday’s meeting with the ruling party’s Central Military Commission was to discuss advancing his military’s war-readiness.
The meeting also sought to establish offensive countermeasure plans to deter adversaries, which state media said were getting more blatant in their ‘reckless military confrontation’ with North Korea.
Condemning recent western drills as invasion rehearsals, Kim has stepped up demonstrations, test-firing more than 100 missiles since the start of last year.
The escalation has driven tensions on the Korean Peninsula to the highest point in years.
Experts say Kim’s nuclear push is aimed at forcing the United States to accept the idea of the North as a nuclear power so he can eventually negotiate economic and security concessions from a position of strength.
After talks of boosting North Korean frontline units and stepping up war drills to incorporate new strategies and weapons, Kim signed an order to implement unspecified ‘important military measures,’ Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency said.
He stressed that the military must acquire ‘more powerful strike means’ to bolster his nuclear deterrent and make speedier deployments of those weapons to combat units.
He called for the country’s munitions industry to step up mass production of various weapons and systems, and for the military to actively conduct ‘actual war drills’ to digest those systems and enhance its war-fighting capabilities, KCNA said.
Since he began his rule in late 2011, Kim has shown a tendency to swiftly replace senior government and military officials if he was unhappy with their performances or needed to hold them responsible for broader policy failures, which the North never pins on its supreme leader.
The decision to sack Pak eight months into the job possibly indicates that Kim was dissatisfied about his ability to craft military strategies and went back to a more trusted hand in Ri, who had a lengthy previous stint as chief of general staff, said Cheong Seong-Chang, a senior analyst at South Korea’s Sejong Institute.
Thursday’s meeting saw the replacement of the country’s top military general, KCNA said
Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu attends a reception for the Russian military delegation hosted by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as part of the 70th anniversary celebration of the Korean War armistice in Pyongyang, North Korea, July 27, 2023
Kim recently invited Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and a Chinese ruling party officials to share center stage at a giant military parade in Pyongyang where he rolled out his most powerful missiles designed to target South Korea and the United States.
Shoigu’s presence at the July 27 parade came after Kim took him on a tour of a domestic arms exhibition, which demonstrated North Korea’s support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and added to suspicions the North was willing to supply arms to Russia.
During Thursday’s meeting, North Korean officials also agreed to hold another military parade to mark the 75th anniversary of its government’s founding.
The Sept. 9 parade would be the country’s third event in 2023 alone.
Analysts say the North has never staged military parades more than twice in the same year.
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