N. Korean leader reappointed in parliament amid tension over rocket launch

(ATTN: UPDATES with N.K. announcement of Kim's reappointment)
By Kim Hyun
SEOUL, April 9 (Yonhap) -- North Korea's new parliament reappointed leader Kim
Jong-il as the country's military chief on Thursday, strengthening his standing,
as the international community strives for ways to respond to the country's
rocket launch.
Countries, including South Korea and the United States, are seeking to punish
North Korea for the launch this past weekend that they believe was actually a
test of a long-range missile. Both Russia and China, the North's closest ally,
oppose sanctions.
The Supreme People's Assembly, newly elected last month, "solemnly declared
internally and externally" that Kim was elected as chairman of the National
Defense Commission, the North's Korean Central News Agency said.
Kim's election "is all the servicepersons and people's expression of unquestioned
support and trust in him," the report said.
The National Defense Commission is the highest military decision-making body that
oversees the country's 1.19 million-strong military and appoints senior military
posts. Thursday's election was Kim's fourth since he assumed the post in 1993, a
year before the death of his father and the country's founder, Kim Il-sung.
Kim has since made a military-first policy the nation's foremost ideology.
The Supreme People's Assembly is a rubber stamp parliament that gives routine
approval to Kim's decisions, but its first meeting is politically significant,
renewing Kim's five-year term, approving shake-ups in the Cabinet and the
military and ratifying foreign policy directives.
New lawmakers may reaffirm Pyongyang's tough stance defending its rocket launch
in response to moves by Seoul, Washington and Tokyo to strengthen U.N. sanctions
against the isolated nation.
In a mass celebratory gathering in Pyongyang on Wednesday, Choe Thae-bok,
secretary of the Workers' Party central committee, said the situation is "tense"
due to the U.S. conservatives' "hostile" policy and the South Korean
"warmongers."
"The threatening expressions with regard to the situation on the Korean Peninsula
were raised to a higher level, compared to last year when they described the
situation as tense and unstable," said Seoul's Unification Ministry spokeswoman
Lee Jong-joo.
The North's military also warned Japan against trying to locate debris from its
three-stage rocket, amid reports the Japanese government was considering
salvaging parts of the rocket to assess the North's ballistic technology. Such a
search would be an "intolerable military provocative act," the General Staff of
the North's Korean People's Army said on Wednesday.
North Korea's state media continued to claim that Sunday's launch successfully
put a satellite into orbit, but intelligence officials say one of the three
boosters fell into the East Sea between the Korean Peninsula and Japan, while the
two others and the payload fizzled into the Pacific Ocean.
For North Korea watchers, the biggest question is how broadly Kim will reshuffle
the National Defense Commission and whether he will revise the constitution to
restructure state agencies, indicating a policy shift. Kim allegedly suffered a
stroke last August, and will likely try to tidy up the power structure to make
room for a successor, they suggest.
"Kim must have realized when he fell ill that the official absence of a successor
could expose a weak point in his regime that could be exploited by outside
forces. That could lead Kim to try to strengthen internal unity and settle the
succession issue early," said Hong Ihk-hyun, an analyst with the Korea Institute
for International Economic Policy in Seoul.
Pyongyang's media reports have tied the rocket launch and Kim's predicted
reappointment to the country's economic campaign to build a "great, prosperous
and powerful socialist nation" by 2012, the centennial anniversary of Kim
Il-sung's birth.
Compared to recent years, Kim has nearly tripled his number of field inspections
in the past three months, revving up the economic drive. Among his 44 trips so
far, 20 visits were to industrial facilities, compared to 13 military visits,
according to Seoul's Unification Ministry.
hkim@yna.co.kr
(END)