North Korea reappoints Kim Jong Un as president of state affairs

2026-03-23 - 01:20

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (centre) has ruled the country since the death of his father in 2011. (EPA Images pic) SEOUL: North Korea’s rubber-stamp legislature has re-elected Kim Jong Un as president of state affairs, state media reported today. Kim’s reappointment as head of the authoritarian nation’s highest policy-making and governing body, the State Affairs Commission, was announced by the state news agency, KCNA. “The Supreme People’s Assembly of the DPRK reelected Comrade Kim Jong Un as president of the state affairs of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea at the First Session, the first state affairs activity of its 15th term, on March 22,” the KCNA report said. The report said the decision to elect Kim to the “top post” in the North Korean state reflected “the unanimous will and desire of all the Korean people”. Kim Jong Un is the third-generation ruler of the nuclear-armed state founded by his grandfather, Kim Il Sung, in 1948, and has ruled the country since his father’s death in 2011. Analysts say the current assembly session may also take up possible constitutional amendments that could include formally codifying inter-Korean relations as those between “two hostile states”.