DHAKA: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has replaced officials holding almost half of the nation’s key posts in an attempt to strengthen his control over the country.

A South Korean report showed on Tuesday, reports The Straits Times.

Kim has changed the officials filling 97 out of 218 military, party and government posts since he took over the communist dynasty in December 2011, the South’s Unification Ministry said in a report.

He has often used a ‘demotion and reinstatement’ process in reshuffling military posts in an attempt to tighten control over the military, the ministry said.

‘This means Kim has completed the dynastic succession of power successfully and faster than expected,’ Professor Yang Moo Jin at Seoul`s University of North Korean Studies told media.

BDST: 1946 HRS, OCT 08, 2013
RoR/RK