{"id":22057,"date":"2012-11-29T20:47:29","date_gmt":"2012-11-29T11:47:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/en.dailynk.com\/en\/?p=22057"},"modified":"2020-01-17T08:46:26","modified_gmt":"2020-01-16T23:46:26","slug":"north-replaces-mpaf-minister-after","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/english\/north-replaces-mpaf-minister-after\/","title":{"rendered":"North Replaces MPAF Minister after 7 Months"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The South Korean government believes that North Korea has appointed the former commander of the 4th Corps, Kim Kyok Shik, to the Ministry of the People\u2019s Armed Forces (MPAF), just seven months after V.Mar Kim Jong Gak was appointed to the same post.<\/p>\n<p>A senior government official revealed the news, saying that the process appears to be based on an assessment of relative loyalty to Kim Jong Eun. <\/p>\n<p>Kim was relieved of his duties as military chief-of-staff in February of 2009, moving down to the 4th Corps, which at the time controlled defense in and around the West Sea. As such, he is thought to have directly led the Cheonan sinking and Yeonpyeong Island shelling in 2010.<\/p>\n<p>It is unclear why he has suddenly been made minister of the MPAF. However, attempting to explain it, the government official said, \u201cThere have been obvious signs that top military leaders are being replaced depending upon their allegiance. One of the recent messages from First Secretary Kim Jong Eun was apparently that those without allegiance to the cause are little more than sticks.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kim Jong Gak\u2019s new position is unknown, but it has been suggested that he may have been made dean of Kim Il Sung Military University in Pyongyang.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The South Korean government believes that North Korea has appointed the former commander of the 4th Corps, Kim Kyok Shik, to the Ministry of the People\u2019s Armed Forces (MPAF), just seven months after V.Mar Kim Jong Gak was appointed to the same post. A senior government official revealed the news, saying that the process appears [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":140,"featured_media":22059,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wikipediapreview_detectlinks":true,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.7 (Yoast SEO v28.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>North Replaces MPAF Minister after 7 Months - North Korea News \u2014 Daily NK | Latest DPRK Updates 2026<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/english\/north-replaces-mpaf-minister-after\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"North Replaces MPAF Minister after 7 Months\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The South Korean government believes that North Korea has appointed the former commander of the 4th Corps, Kim Kyok Shik, to the Ministry of the People\u2019s Armed Forces (MPAF), just seven months after V.Mar Kim Jong Gak was appointed to the same post. 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