In the case of the executed Kim, an anonymous source at the Unification Ministry told The New York Times that Kim Jong Un was displeased with a “disrespectful posture” of Kim Yong Jin’s during a meeting that the North Korean leader oversaw in late June.
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“Vice premier for education Kim Yong Jin was executed”, Seoul’s Unification Ministry spokesman Jeong Joon-Hee said at a regular briefing.
A South Korean official, speaking on Wednesday in Pyongyang, on condition of anonymity, citing office rules, said Yong-Jin was executed by firing squad in July for unspecified anti-revolutionary and factional acts.
Kim Yong-chol, 71, head of the United Front Department, was sent to a farm for “re-education” – ironically for his “heavy-handed” approach.
“I think North Korea is capable of miniaturizing nuclear bombs”, said Yang Uk, a senior research fellow at the Korea Defense and Security Forum and a policy adviser to the South Korean navy.
THAAD has also been the subject of domestic protests, particularly by those living in the rural South Korean county of Seongju where the first battery will be installed.
JoongAng Daily’s report has yet to be independently verified, and North Korea’s state-run KCNA news agency has remained silent on the subject.
“Therefore, we are keeping close tabs on the North”, he said. Jeong also corroborated the report of the purge of Kim Yong Chol, who headed up North Korean spying operations on the South.
North Korea’s SLBM test is fueling urgency for U.S. President Barack Obama and other East Asia leaders to discuss the matter when they hold the EAS meeting next week, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Russel said Tuesday. “So how reflective are these reports of what’s happening in North Korea?”
In May, however, he reportedly reappeared on a list of attendees of a Workers’ Party of Korea congress.
North Korea is constructing a mobile long-range missile launcher that can be transported on rail tracks, according to multiple sources in North Korea.
The most notorious case of North Korea’s execution was that of Kim’s uncle and onetime No. 2 Jang Song-Thaek, who was charged with treason and corruption in December 2013.
“A wide reshuffling of the North Korean elite has taken place as part of the process of building Kim Jong Un’s system”, he said, adding that the execution could have served as a warning to others in North Korea’s top tier.
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“Kim is continuing to replace the old guard of his father’s regime with loyalists”, said Robert Kelly, a political science professor at South Korea’s Pusan National University.
