It was a gesture that seemed intended to demonstrate Kim Jong Un’s total control of his military machine as well as his readiness to do business with Pyongyang’s bitter foe.
With little more than a week to go before a potentially historic summit with the US, North Korea’s supreme leader dismissed his minister of defence, the country’s chief of staff and the director of the army’s politburo, replacing them with men with proven loyalty to himself.
The sackings, reported by South Korea’s Yonhap news agency on Monday, were part of the diplomatic dance ahead of Mr Kim’s June 12 high stakes meeting in Singapore, when Donald Trump will be pressing him to take steps towards giving up North Korea’s nuclear arsenal.