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N.Korea’s leader named top military official: KCNA

12 April 2012 04:31 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. North Korea’s new leader Kim Jong-Un was named the top military official of the ruling party, state media said early Thursday, ahead of a planned rocket launch that has triggered international alarm, APA reports quoting AFP.

Jong-Un was elected the "chairman" of the Central Military Commission -- which controls the 1.1 million-strong military -- at a party conference on Wednesday, Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.

The announcement came after the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) on Wednesday declared Jong-Un its "first secretary", an apparently new title.

His father Kim Jong-Il, who died last December, was declared "eternal" general secretary of the party, the post he had held in his lifetime.

The new titles are likely to bolster the authority of Jong-Un, aged in his late 20s, by stressing his status as dynastic successor.

"This means that the North has completed the transfer of party power from the late leader to Kim Jong-Un," Professor Yang Moo-Jin of the University of North Korean Studies told AFP.

The country is celebrating the 100th anniversary of the birth on April 15 of founding leader Kim Il-Sung, the late grandfather of the current ruler.

The North has started fuelling a rocket for a satellite launch scheduled sometime between Thursday and next Monday to mark the occasion.

The United States and other nations have strongly condemned the plan as a disguised ballistic missile test.