North Korea has reportedly shuffled its top military leadership ahead of an expected meeting between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un.

Three of the reclusive country’s highest-ranking officials were replaced, according to a report in Yonhap news agency that cited an intelligence source who said one of the incoming generals is seen as a “moderate” who could exercise “flexibility in thinking”.

It can be difficult to decode leadership turnover within the opaque North Korean regime, where shifting dynamics can lead to purges of the type Mr Kim carried out upon assuming power.

But power and the military are tightly intertwined in North Korea, and the country’s martial ambitions are at the centre of a high-stakes diplomatic exchange unfolding across the globe.

After testing a nuclear weapon and a barrage of increasingly sophisticated ballistic missiles - including projectiles capable of hitting the United States - Mr Kim expressed a willingness to denuclearise in inviting Mr Trump to meet.

The regime has since sent mixed signals on its willingness to abandon its nuclear arsenal. While US officials have been in lockstep with their allies on demanding the absolute and verifiable dissolution of North Korea’s nuclear programme, US secretary of state Mike Pompeo noted last week that the regime has long seen a nuclear arsenal as a means of self-preservation

Kim Jong-un inspects weapon North Korea says is powerful hydrogen bomb Show all 6 1 /6 Kim Jong-un inspects weapon North Korea says is powerful hydrogen bomb Kim Jong-un inspects weapon North Korea says is powerful hydrogen bomb Photos released by North Korea show Kim Jong-un talking to subordinates next to a device thought to be the new thermonuclear weapon. There is no way of independently verifying the pictures STR/AFP/Getty Images Kim Jong-un inspects weapon North Korea says is powerful hydrogen bomb North Korea claims it has successfully tested an advanced hydrogen bomb which could be loaded onto an intercontinental ballistic missile AFP/Getty Kim Jong-un inspects weapon North Korea says is powerful hydrogen bomb A diagram on the wall behind Mr Kim shows a bomb mounted inside a cone STR/AFP/Getty Images Kim Jong-un inspects weapon North Korea says is powerful hydrogen bomb North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un (C) attending a photo session with participants of the fourth conference of active secretaries of primary organisations of the youth league of the Korean People's Army (KPA) in Pyongyang STR/AFP/Getty Images Kim Jong-un inspects weapon North Korea says is powerful hydrogen bomb A new stamp issued in commemoration of the successful second test launch of the "Hwasong-14" intercontinental ballistic missile KCNA via Reuters Kim Jong-un inspects weapon North Korea says is powerful hydrogen bomb A new stamp issued in commemoration of the successful second test launch of the "Hwasong-14" intercontinental ballistic missile KCNA via Reuters

“There’s a long history where North Korea has viewed its nuclear programme as providing the security it needed for the regime”, Mr Pompeo said this week after emerging from a meeting with a top-ranking North Korean official who subsequently met with Mr Trump in the Oval Office.

A key goal in talks, Mr Pompeo said, would be convincing the regime that “the real threat to their security is the continued holding onto that nuclear weapons programme and not the converse”.

In a development that would dramatically alter the status quo on the Korean Peninsula, the regime has also embraced striking a peace deal with South Korea to formally end the Korean War.

Top North Korean official arrives at the White House to deliver letter from Kim Jong Un

After the conflict technically stalled into a truce decades ago, the two Koreas have remained in a hostile stalemate, watching each other across a heavily fortified border.