Reshuffle in North Korean Defense Ministry is not Apocalypse

The North Korean news agency KCNA reported on Monday that the country's leader Kim Jong-un appointed a new Minister of People's Armed Forces, Colonel-General Chang Chung-Nam. How may this reshuffle affect the situation on the Korean Peninsula? Pravda.Ru asked leading officer of the Center for Korean Studies of the Institute for Far Eastern Studies, Konstantine Asmolov, to comment the situation. 

"If the change did take place, then one should remember that the Minister of Defense is a person responsible for administrative, rather than technical issues. On the non-formal table of ranks, the defense minister stands lower the chief of the political department of the army, and certainly lower than the head of the Committee of Defense. Therefore, a radical change in policy, unlike in other countries with a different form of command hierarchy, is not likely to happen.

"Actually, I would like to draw attention to the fact that we should not take any piece of news that concerns the DPRK as apocalyptic or bearing deep hidden meaning," the expert concluded.