North Korea’s Kim Jong Un reappointed as president of state affairs, KCNA says

North Korean leader ​Kim Jong Un was reappointed as president of state affairs, ‌state media KCNA reported on Monday, after the isolated nation convened the first session of its Supreme People’s Assembly a day earlier.

The meeting in Pyongyang will discuss amendments ​and supplements to the socialist constitution, as well as the ​election of the chairman of the State Affairs Commission and ⁠other state leadership bodies, Reuters reported.

The assembly, North Korea’s rubber-stamp legislature that formally approves ​state policy, typically meets following a ruling Workers’ Party Congress to turn ​party decisions into law.

The meeting will also review the country’s economic five-year plan announced at the ninth party congress held in February, KCNA said.

Attention has been focused on whether ​Pyongyang will revise its constitution to formalise leader Kim Jong Un’s “two ​hostile states” policy toward South Korea.

In recent years, Kim has abandoned Pyongyang’s long-standing goal ‌of peaceful ⁠reunification and redefined the South as a hostile state.

Kim’s powerful sister, Kim Yo Jong, was notably absent from KCNA’s list of members of the State Affairs Commission, the country’s highest leadership body, on which she ​had served since ​2021.

South Korea’s ⁠Unification Ministry said it was looking into why she was no longer listed, but analysts said the move ​did not necessarily signal a loss of influence.

“Her absence ​suggests not ⁠a decline in status but a strategic division of roles,” said Lim Eul-chul, a professor at Kyungnam University, adding that the younger Kim continues to ⁠wield ​real power as a department director in ​the ruling Workers’ Party, where she may play a higher-level, party-centred role coordinating policy.