1. Problem Statement

On August 29, 2026, North Korea convened the Second Meeting of the Ninth Central Military Commission (CMC) of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK), chaired by General Secretary Kim Jong Un, and carried out significant personnel changes at the top of the military leadership. Pak Jong Chon, formerly an adviser to the Ministry of National Defense, returned as a member of the Party Central Committee and the Politburo and was simultaneously elected Vice Chairman of the CMC. No Kwang Chol was dismissed as Minister of National Defense, recalled to the Party's central leadership organs, and appointed First Vice Director of the Munitions Industry Department of the Central Committee. Kim Song Gi, Director of the General Political Bureau of the Korean People's Army (KPA), was named the new Minister of National Defense, while Yu Kwang U, Director of the Security Bureau, was promoted to the Politburo and appointed First Deputy Director of the General Political Bureau. Om Ju Ho, political commissar of the Air Force, was elected to the Central Committee at a by-election and appointed the new Director of the Security Bureau at the same time.²⁾

According to official North Korean media, the meeting evaluated the recent "political and military activities of the KPA Committee of the WPK and the Ministry of National Defense," and went on to discuss "a series of organizational and structural reorganization plans" for improving and developing national defense work as a whole.³⁾ It is therefore insufficient to read these appointments merely as "Pak Jong Chon's comeback" or "a change of defense minister." The personnel actions span the institutions responsible for military policy decision-making, political control, military administration, security and inspection, and munitions production, namely the CMC, the General Political Bureau, the Security Bureau, the Ministry of National Defense, and the Munitions Industry Department. By contrast, Ri Yong Gil, Chief of the General Staff, who bears responsibility for actual operational command, kept his post. This suggests that the August 29 appointments were less a wholesale replacement of the operational command structure than an interim review of the upper-level military leadership and control system formed after the Ninth Party Congress, coupled with a readjustment of certain functions and responsibilities.

These appointments should be understood in the context of three developments. The first is the reorganization of the military leadership structure at the Ninth Party Congress in February 2026. The second is the large-scale corruption case involving Pak Hui Chol, Deputy Director for Organizational Affairs, which came to light in July. The third is the set of new force-building tasks presented at the Ninth Party Congress and the First Enlarged Meeting of the Ninth CMC in July, including the expansion of nuclear forces, the strengthening of reconnaissance and intelligence capabilities, the modernization of military bases, and the enhancement of naval power. Taken together, the principal aim of the August 29 appointments can be assessed as strengthening political control and inspection over the military while reinforcing expertise in military strategy, operations, and munitions production.

That said, the "simultaneous strengthening of control and expertise" does not mean that the two goals are always compatible. If the involvement of political and security organs expands excessively, it may constrain the judgment and command autonomy of professional officers. Conversely, if expertise is overemphasized, it may reinforce the independent networks and vested interests within the military that the supreme leader is wary of. It is therefore more accurate to interpret these appointments not as concentrating control and expertise in a single institution, but as an attempt to distribute functions across different institutions and individuals, with Kim Jong Un and the CMC serving as the final arbiters.

2. Pak Jong Chon's Return and the Dual Vice Chairmanship at the Central Military Commission

The first change to note in the August 29 appointments is Pak Jong Chon's return as Vice Chairman of the CMC. After stepping down from the Politburo and the CMC at the Ninth Party Congress in February 2026, Pak had been serving as an adviser to the Ministry of National Defense, but within roughly six months he returned as a member of the Central Committee, a Politburo member, and Vice Chairman of the CMC. Demotions and reinstatements of senior officials are not uncommon in North Korea, but the fact that a figure who lost one of the highest-ranking military posts at a Party Congress regained that same post within half a year indicates that the leadership arrangement established just after the Ninth Party Congress was not fixed, and can be rapidly readjusted according to policy needs.

There is, however, no evidence to date that Pak Jong Chon's return represents a replacement of Jong Kyong Thaek. North Korea's August 29 meeting made no announcement of Jong Kyong Thaek's dismissal or recall from the post of CMC Vice Chairman. Moreover, the official meeting photograph shows Jong Kyong Thaek seated immediately to Kim Jong Un's right, and Pak Jong Chon, newly elected Vice Chairman, seated immediately to his left. Seating arrangements alone cannot establish formal rank, but taken together with the absence of any announcement of Jong Kyong Thaek's dismissal and with institutional precedent, this suggests it is likely that a system of co-Vice-Chairmen has again been put in place.

There is a clear precedent for this in North Korea. At the Third Enlarged Meeting of the Eighth CMC in June 2022, held with Pak Jong Chon then serving as the existing Vice Chairman, the Commission decided on "the question of increasing the number of CMC Vice Chairman posts" and elected Ri Pyong Chol as an additional Vice Chairman, establishing a co-Vice-Chairman system between Pak and Ri.⁴⁾ Given this precedent, it is more likely that Pak Jong Chon was added alongside the existing Jong Kyong Thaek arrangement than that he replaced him. That said, final confirmation will require Jong Kyong Thaek to again be formally identified as "CMC Vice Chairman" in future North Korean media coverage.

A possible division of roles between the two men also deserves attention. Jong Kyong Thaek is a prominent figure with extensive experience in political and security affairs who has served as Minister of State Security and Director of the General Political Bureau. Pak Jong Chon, by contrast, is a career officer with a strongly operational background who rose through the Artillery Command and the General Staff Department to become Chief of the General Staff. It is therefore plausible that Jong Kyong Thaek will concentrate relatively more on the Party's political guidance over the military and on organizational, personnel, and disciplinary matters, while Pak Jong Chon complements this in the areas of military strategy, operations, and force development. At present, however, this remains an analytical inference drawn from the two men's careers and recent appointments, not an official division of labor disclosed by North Korea.

This raises the question of who, before Pak Jong Chon's return, had been complementing Jong Kyong Thaek in the area of military strategy and operations. There is no need to assume, however, that a separate "Vice Chairman for operations" had necessarily been envisioned. Ri Yong Gil, Chief of the General Staff, remained in place throughout within the actual operational command structure and was again retained in this round of appointments. No Kwang Chol, as Minister of National Defense, may have handled some force-development and military administrative functions, but there is no public evidence that he was intended to take overall charge of military strategy and operations in Pak Jong Chon's stead. It is therefore more reasonable to view Pak Jong Chon's return not simply as filling a vacancy in the existing structure, but as the return of an experienced operational specialist into the top tier of military policymaking at a moment when force-modernization tasks were being concretized.

At the same time, explaining Pak Jong Chon's return purely in terms of reinforcing expertise is also insufficient. Kim Jong Un has consistently distributed authority and responsibility among senior elites and placed them in a system of mutual checks, so as to prevent influence from becoming excessively concentrated in any single figure or institution. In this light, it cannot be ruled out that Pak Jong Chon's reappointment served not only to complement Jong Kyong Thaek but also, in part, to diffuse responsibility and establish mutual checks within the top military leadership. Based on currently available materials alone, however, it is difficult to determine which explanation carries greater weight.

3. Reorganization of the General Political Bureau and Security Bureau, and the Rapid Rise of Yu Kwang U

No less significant than Pak Jong Chon's return is the rapid rise of Yu Kwang U. Yu moved from Director of the Security Bureau of the Korean People's Army (KPA) to First Deputy Director of the General Political Bureau, while simultaneously being promoted to the Politburo. His successor as Security Bureau Director, Om Ju Ho, previously the Air Force's political commissar, likewise entered the Central Committee. These appointments should be analyzed in connection with the corruption case of Pak Hui Chol, former Deputy Director for Organizational Affairs, which was publicly condemned at the joint Party-government-military meeting held on July 10.

North Korean authorities stated that Pak Hui Chol had abused his organizational and personnel authority within the General Political Bureau to accept large bribes, engaged in illicit enrichment and the sale of posts, and placed loyalists and sycophants in key positions, thereby undermining the establishment of the Party's monolithic system of military leadership.⁵⁾ In a system such as North Korea's, the political significance of this case extends well beyond simple bribery, since the General Political Bureau's organization department wields considerable influence over the organizational life and personnel affairs of military officers. If North Korea's account is accurate, the Pak Hui Chol case exposed a problem in which personnel appointment authority and loyalty relationships that should be concentrated in the supreme leader had been partially privatized by a mid-level power holder.

At this point it is necessary to define precisely the current standing of the General Political Bureau. In the past, the Bureau controlled the organizational life, political and ideological work, and personnel affairs of the military, and there were periods, particularly under Kim Jong Il and in the early years of Kim Jong Un's rule, when the Director of the General Political Bureau concurrently held posts such as CMC Vice Chairman and functioned as one of the military's most powerful figures, occupying a political standing above that of the General Staff Department and the Ministry of the People's Armed Forces.⁶⁾ Applying this past standing unchanged to the present, however, is not appropriate.

Under Kim Jong Un, the CMC's authority over military policy decisions and military command has been substantially strengthened. The Party Charter as revised at the Eighth Party Congress in 2021 defines the CMC as "the Party's highest military leadership organ between Party Congresses" and explicitly states that it "commands the armed forces of the Republic."⁷⁾ In addition, at the Fourth Enlarged Meeting of the Seventh CMC in 2020, Chief of the General Staff Pak Jong Chon was promoted to a higher military rank than General Political Bureau Director Kim Su Gil, a significant departure from the long-standing practice, in place since Kim Il Sung's death, of appointing the Director of the General Political Bureau to a rank equal to or higher than that of the Chief of the General Staff.⁸⁾

It is therefore more accurate to define today's General Political Bureau not as the supreme organ commanding the entire North Korean military, but as a core political institution responsible, within the military, for Party political work, organizational life, personnel management, and the maintenance of political loyalty. The Bureau's functions remain highly important, but it is not an institution that oversees military strategy and operations, defense administration, and the munitions industry as well. At the apex of the overall military leadership system stand Kim Jong Un and the CMC, and the structure in which the General Staff Department, the Ministry of National Defense, the General Political Bureau, the Security Bureau, and the munitions-industry-related institutions divide responsibilities by function has become correspondingly clearer.

Against this backdrop of a changed institutional standing, the significance of Yu Kwang U's appointment as First Deputy Director of the General Political Bureau can be grasped more precisely. Assigning Yu, who had accumulated experience in internal military security and inspection as Director of the Security Bureau, to the General Political Bureau immediately after the Pak Hui Chol case is likely intended to overhaul the Bureau's organizational and personnel management and discipline and to strengthen internal control. Notably, Yu was not merely given the post of First Deputy Director but was also promoted to the Politburo, indicating that he has been granted considerable political authority.

The post of First Deputy Director of the General Political Bureau itself also warrants attention. In the past, when General Political Bureau Director Jo Myong Rok became unable to perform his normal duties due to illness, Kim Jong Gak was appointed First Deputy Director in 2007 and effectively acted in the Director's stead; even after Jo Myong Rok's death, Kim Jong Gak continued to lead the Bureau in practice until Choe Ryong Hae was appointed Director.⁹⁾ In this light, the fact that Kim Song Gi has moved to the post of Minister of National Defense without a new Director of the General Political Bureau being announced, and that Yu Kwang U has instead been appointed First Deputy Director, raises the possibility that Yu may in effect effectively oversee the Bureau's day-to-day work for some period of time.

Moreover, Yu Kwang U was elected to full Politburo membership, a higher standing than that of Ri Yong Gil, Chief of the General Staff, who currently holds only alternate Politburo membership. The post of First Deputy Director of the General Political Bureau is, by rank, subordinate to the Director, and is not ordinarily regarded as carrying a political standing higher than that of the Chief of the General Staff. That Yu Kwang U was nonetheless given this elevated standing within the Party raises the likelihood that the appointment was made with an eye not only to his present post but to a role he may assume in the future. In particular, given that a direct move from Security Bureau Director to General Political Bureau Director would constitute an exceptional promotion that skips several intermediate steps, it is worth noting the possibility that this represents a staged personnel sequence: first having Yu oversee the Bureau's affairs for a period as First Deputy Director, before elevating him to Director.

This, however, remains a hypothesis at this stage. The possibility that Kim Song Gi is concurrently holding the posts of Minister of National Defense and Director of the General Political Bureau for a period, or that Yu Kwang U has been granted temporary authority specifically to manage the fallout from the Pak Hui Chol case, cannot be entirely ruled out. It will therefore be necessary to monitor whether North Korean media continue to refer to Kim Song Gi as Director of the General Political Bureau or announce a new Director, and what standing Yu Kwang U, as First Deputy Director, displays at General Political Bureau meetings and major military events going forward.

The appointment of Om Ju Ho, the Air Force's political commissar, as Yu Kwang U's successor at the Security Bureau can be read in the same light. Based on his publicly known career, Om is distinguished more by his experience in military political work as a political commissar than by service within security or counterintelligence organs. His appointment as Security Bureau Director may therefore be intended to more strongly combine the Bureau's existing security, counterintelligence, and inspection functions with the demands of political loyalty and discipline management. There is, however, as yet no basis for extending this reading into a claim that the institutional function of the Security Bureau itself has changed.

4. Kim Song Gi's Move to Minister of National Defense and No Kwang Chol's Redeployment to the Munitions Industry Department

Another major component of the reshuffle is the reorganization of the Ministry of National Defense and the Munitions Industry Department. Kim Song Gi had served as Director of the General Political Bureau after succeeding Jong Kyong Thaek following the Ninth Party Congress, but moved to the post of Minister of National Defense after roughly six months. The standing and functions of the General Political Bureau and the Ministry of National Defense need to be distinguished: the former is centered on Party political work and organizational and personnel control within the military, while the latter handles military administration and national defense administration at the level of a state organ. Kim Song Gi's appointment as Minister of National Defense cannot, therefore, be read as a transfer of the General Political Bureau's authority to the Ministry. It is more likely that placing a figure with experience in military political work at the head of defense administration was intended to ensure that the Party's military line and political requirements are more faithfully reflected in the Ministry's military-administrative work.

No Kwang Chol's case must be viewed along two dimensions simultaneously, dismissal and reassignment. North Korea stated not only that he had been "dismissed" as Minister of National Defense but also that he had been "recalled from the Party's central leadership organs." Given that he had been elected a Central Committee member, a Politburo member, and a CMC member at the Ninth Party Congress, it is clear that his political standing has declined. To characterize this as a "purge" or a complete exit from power would, however, be an overstatement, since North Korea immediately appointed him to the key working post of First Vice Director of the Munitions Industry Department of the Central Committee.

No Kwang Chol previously served as Chairman of the Second Economic Committee and accumulated experience in managing the munitions industry. North Korean reporting also confirms that in 2010 he served as the head of the Kangdong Weak-Current Instrument Factory.¹⁰⁾ His move thus appears to carry two characteristics at once, a decline in political standing and a redeployment of his munitions expertise. It is possible that the meeting's evaluation of the Ministry of National Defense's political and military activities held him to some degree of managerial accountability. At the same time, his immediate redeployment to a key executive post in the Munitions Industry Department clearly indicates an intention to continue making use of his production and management experience.

Particular caution is warranted in linking No Kwang Chol's move directly to accountability for the Pak Hui Chol case. The General Political Bureau is not a subordinate organ of the Ministry of National Defense but a Party political institution operating within the military under the guidance of the Central Committee, situated on a separate organizational and leadership track from the Ministry.¹¹⁾ The institutional basis for concluding that the Minister of National Defense bore direct command responsibility for corruption by the Deputy Director for Organizational Affairs of the General Political Bureau is accordingly weak. That said, given that the political and military activities of both the KPA Committee of the WPK and the Ministry of National Defense were evaluated together at the August 29 meeting, and that No Kwang Chol was recalled from the Party's central leadership organs, the possibility that he was held to some degree of managerial accountability for the overall performance of national defense work should not be ruled out entirely. At this stage, the most cautious assessment is that his case reflects a decline in political standing accompanied by a degree of accountability, combined with the redeployment of his munitions expertise.

No Kwang Chol's move to the Munitions Industry Department is also connected to North Korea's ongoing military modernization drive. At the First Enlarged Meeting of the Ninth CMC in July, North Korea presented as key tasks the strengthening of reconnaissance and intelligence capabilities, the qualitative and quantitative expansion of nuclear forces, the standardization, specialization, and modernization of military bases, and the construction of modern naval bases along with the expansion and renovation of shipyard capacity.¹²⁾ Such undertakings require not only research and development of new weapons systems but also large-scale production, modernization of production facilities, and improved management capacity at munitions enterprises. Deploying No Kwang Chol, with his munitions-industry experience, as First Vice Director of the Munitions Industry Department is therefore likely an implementation-oriented appointment aimed at strengthening the implementation capacity of the force-building program that has gathered pace since the Ninth Party Congress.

Going forward, it will be worth observing the division of roles between Kim Jong Sik, the existing First Vice Director of the Munitions Industry Department, and No Kwang Chol, newly appointed to the same post. Since a single department in North Korea can have more than one First Vice Director, the post itself is not inherently contradictory. Given that Kim Jong Sik has long played an important role in the development of strategic weapons, including nuclear and missile programs, it is conceivable that No Kwang Chol may be assigned other areas, such as the management of munitions enterprises, conventional weapons production, or munitions cooperation with Russia.¹³⁾ This remains speculative for lack of direct evidence at present, however, and should be assessed once it becomes clear which production facilities and weapons-test sites the two men appear at going forward.

5. The Core Significance of the August 29 Appointments and Observation Points for South Korea

Viewed as a whole, it is difficult to conclude that Kim Jong Un has dismantled, within a mere six months, the military leadership structure he built at the Ninth Party Congress. It is more reasonable to assess this round of changes as a partial supplementation and readjustment of the upper-level military leadership structure, undertaken in response to the organizational management problems that surfaced after the Ninth Party Congress and to the new demands of military modernization. If Jong Kyong Thaek's elevation immediately after the Ninth Party Congress represented a personnel choice that placed relatively greater emphasis on political control over the military, the August 29 reorganization can be seen as supplementing that structure while preserving such control, by redeploying Pak Jong Chon's military expertise and No Kwang Chol's munitions-industry experience.

What stands out in this table is that it is difficult to assess today's General Political Bureau, as it could be in the Kim Jong Il era or the early years of Kim Jong Un's rule, as a core military institution holding a uniformly higher political standing than the General Staff Department and the Ministry of National Defense. Under Kim Jong Un, the military leadership structure has differentiated in a direction where the CMC holds the central position in military policy decisions and military command, while the General Political Bureau, the General Staff Department, the Ministry of National Defense, the Security Bureau, and the munitions-industry-related institutions each handle distinct functions. The relative standing of an institution should therefore be judged not by an individual's protocol ranking alone, but together with the actual duties involved, the person's position within the CMC, and the areas in which he accompanies Kim Jong Un.

A structural tension exists between political control and military expertise. If the involvement of political and security organs becomes excessive, it can weaken the judgment and accountability of professional officers. Conversely, granting a particular commander excessive autonomy on the grounds of military expertise can pose a potential political risk to the supreme leader. Based solely on the appointments made public so far, Kim Jong Un appears to be drawing on Jong Kyong Thaek's political and organizational experience, Pak Jong Chon's military strategy and operational experience, the operational command function of Chief of the General Staff Ri Yong Gil, the political and security experience of Yu Kwang U and Om Ju Ho, and No Kwang Chol's munitions-industry experience, each in its own sphere, while retaining final coordinating authority in the CMC and, ultimately, in his own hands. As long as this functional division is maintained, control and expertise can coexist to a certain degree.

The first thing to confirm going forward is how Jong Kyong Thaek is formally identified. If North Korea again refers to him as "CMC Vice Chairman," the co-Vice-Chairman system between Jong Kyong Thaek and Pak Jong Chon will be effectively confirmed. The second is whether a successor to the Director of the General Political Bureau emerges, or whether the post is held concurrently. It will need to be observed whether Kim Song Gi holds the posts of Minister of National Defense and Director of the General Political Bureau concurrently, whether a separate Director is named, or whether Yu Kwang U in effect leads the Bureau's work as First Deputy Director for an extended period. The third is the actual division of responsibilities between Jong Kyong Thaek and Pak Jong Chon are active. If Jong Kyong Thaek becomes relatively more prominent in matters concerning military officers' political and organizational affairs and in Party meetings, while Pak Jong Chon accompanies Kim Jong Un predominantly in military training, operational planning, new weapons tests, and force development, the functional division of labor will be confirmed more clearly.

The fourth is the evolution of Yu Kwang U's standing. How frequently he accompanies Kim Jong Un, as a Politburo member, to major military events, and what position he occupies at General Political Bureau-related meetings, will indicate the extent to which the internal political control system of the military has been reorganized following the Pak Hui Chol case. The fifth is No Kwang Chol's future activities. It will be necessary to track which munitions factories and weapons-development sites he appears at alongside Kim Jong Sik, and in particular whether he concentrates on the expansion of conventional weapons production, strategic weapons production, or munitions cooperation with Russia.

There is no basis for concluding that these appointments directly signal preparations for a specific military action or provocation against South Korea. Ri Yong Gil, Chief of the General Staff, was retained, and the focus of these appointments was not front-line corps commanders or principal operational commanders but the CMC, the General Political Bureau, the Security Bureau, the Ministry of National Defense, and the Munitions Industry Department. This points less to a wholesale restructuring of the operational command system ahead of a specific military operation than to an adjustment of the upper-level command and control system aimed at providing a more stable basis for military modernization.

Over the medium to long term, however, the implications for South Korea's security are far from negligible. North Korea has already set as key force-building tasks the qualitative and quantitative expansion of its nuclear forces, the strengthening of reconnaissance and intelligence capabilities, the modernization of military bases, and the expansion of naval base and shipyard capacity. For this military buildup to translate into actual combat capability, it requires not only the development of weapons systems but simultaneous support in production, command, operation, personnel management, and security and discipline. The August 29 reorganization can be read precisely as an institutional overhaul aimed at strengthening this latter dimension.

In the end, the core of the August 29 military personnel appointments does not lie solely in Pak Jong Chon's personal "comeback." What matters more is that Kim Jong Un, with the CMC at the apex, is redeploying the several axes of political control, operational command, defense administration, security, and munitions production in an effort to enhance its practical ability to employ its expanding nuclear, missile, and naval capabilities. Kim Jong Un needs a strong military, but cannot tolerate a military establishment with independent political interests of its own. At the same time, he has no use for a military that is politically loyal but unable to effectively develop, produce, and operate advanced weapons. The most persuasive reading of the August 29 appointments is that they represent a Kim Jong Un-style readjustment of the military command and control system, designed to manage both of these requirements simultaneously.

1. I thank Junhee Lee, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Political Science at Kyung Hee University, for his helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article.
2. "Proceedings of the Second Meeting of the Ninth Central Military Commission of the Workers' Party of Korea," Rodong Sinmun, August 30, 2026.
3. Ibid.
4. "Report on the Third Enlarged Meeting of the Eighth Central Military Commission of the Workers' Party of Korea," Rodong Sinmun, June 24, 2022.
5. "Let Us Guarantee the Victorious Advance of the Revolution through Firm Discipline and Strict Legal Order: Report on the Joint Meeting of the Party, Government, and Military," Rodong Sinmun, July 11, 2026.
6. Seong-Chang Cheong, The Standing and Role of the North Korean Military's General Political Bureau and the Question of Power Succession (Seongnam: Sejong Institute, 2013), pp. 26-33, 45-47.
7. Seong-Chang Cheong, A Study on the Status and Role of the Central Military Commission of the Korean Workers' Party as the Supreme Military Command Authority in the Kim Jong Un Era (Seoul: Sejong Institute, 2025), pp. 19-21.
8. Seong-Chang Cheong, ibid., pp. 23-24.
9. Seong-Chang Cheong, The Standing and Role of the North Korean Military's General Political Bureau and the Question of Power Succession, pp. 32-33.
10. "The Great Leader Comrade Kim Jong Il Gave On-the-Spot Guidance at the Kangdong Weak-Current Instrument Factory," Rodong Sinmun, January 11, 2010.
11. Seong-Chang Cheong, The Standing and Role of the North Korean Military's General Political Bureau and the Question of Power Succession, pp. 26-32.
12. "Proceedings of the First Enlarged Meeting of the Ninth Central Military Commission of the Workers' Party of Korea," Rodong Sinmun, July 10, 2026.
13. When Choe Ryong Hae, as Kim Jong Un's special envoy, visited Russia in November 2014 and met with President Vladimir Putin, No Kwang Chol accompanied him in the capacity of Deputy Chief of the General Staff and met with Andrei Kartapolov, Chief of the Main Operations Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, to discuss avenues of military cooperation between the two countries. "Special Envoy of Respected Comrade Kim Jong Un Meets with the President of the Russian Federation," Rodong Sinmun, November 20, 2014; "Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Korean People's Army Meets with Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Federation Armed Forces," Korean Central News Agency, November 20, 2014.

※ The opinions expressed in 'Sejong Focus' are those of the author and do not represent the official views of the Sejong Institute.