Kim Jong Un has been formally named head of state of North Korea and commander-in-chief of the military in a new constitution, observers said was possibly aimed at preparing for a peace treaty with the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
North Korea has also long called for a peace deal with the United States to normalise relations and end the technical state of war that has existed since the 1950-1953 Korean War concluded with an armistice rather than a peace treaty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The new constitution, unveiled on the Naenara state portal site on Thursday, said that Kim as chairman of the State Affairs Commission , a top governing body created in 2016, was \u201cthe supreme representative of all the Korean people\u201d, which means head of state, and \u201ccommander-in-chief\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cKim had dreamed of becoming the president of North Korea and he effectively made it come true,\u201d said Kim Dong-yup, a professor at Kyungnam University\u2019s Far East Institute in Seoul.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe amendment may well be a chance to establish Kim\u2019s status as the signer of a peace treaty when it comes, while projecting the image of the country as a normal state,\u201d Hong said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Washington had baulked at signing a comprehensive peace treaty before North Korea takes substantial steps toward denuclearisation, but U.S. officials have signalled they may be willing to conclude a more limited agreement to reduce tensions, open liaison offices, and move toward normalising relations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kim shifted his focus to the economy last year, launched nuclear talks with the United States and moved to revamp his image as a world leader via summits with South Korea, China and Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hong Min, a senior researcher of the Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul, said the title change was also aimed at preparing for a potential peace treaty with the United States.Denuclearisation talks between the United States and North Korea have stalled, although fresh talks with Pyongyang are supposed to take place this month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
North Korea has frozen nuclear bomb and long-range missile testing since 2017. But it tested new short-range missiles after a second summit with the United States in February broke down, and U.S. officials believe it has expanded its arsenal by continuing to produce bomb fuel and missiles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Kim Jong Un has been formally named head of state of North Korea and commander-in-chief of the military in a new constitution, observers said was possibly aimed at preparing for a peace treaty with the United States. North Korea has also long called for a peace deal with the United States to normalise relations and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":65914,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65913"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65913\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65915,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65913\/revisions\/65915"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}