Jang Song-thaek, vice chairman of North Korea's National Defense Commission, is arrested during a meeting of the ruling Workers Party of Korea, Sunday, as broadcast by the North's official Korean Central TV, Monday. This was the first time since the 1970s that such a high-profile arrest has been made in public and broadcast. The footage confirmed recent reports that the North's No. 2 man, leader Kim Jong-un's uncle, was ousted.

/ Yonhap



By Kim Tae-gyu



North Korean leader Kim Jong-un

The ouster of North Korea's No. 2 man Jang Song-thaek, the uncle of its leader Kim Jong-un, was confirmed by the country's state media Monday.

The confirmation comes after a week of confusion since the National Intelligence Service (NIS) first briefed a group of lawmakers about Jang's removal.

The North's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported that the powerful political bureau of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea convened Monday to dismiss Jang and his top lieutenants for their "challenge to the communist regime's leadership."

It also released footage of Jang's dismissal, the first time since the 1970s that it has made public and broadcast such a high-profile arrest.

"The Jang Song-thaek group committed such anti-party, counter-revolutionary factional acts of compromising the unity and cohesion of the party and disturbing the work of establishing the party unitary leadership system, and perpetrated such anti-state crimes to harm the efforts to build a thriving nation and improve the standard of people's living," the KCNA said in its English-language Web site.

"Jang pretended to uphold the party and leader but was engrossed in such factional acts as dreaming different dreams and involving himself in double-dealing behind the scenes."

It added that although Jang assumed various crucial posts in the party and the state, he failed to serve the hereditary system of the Kim dynasty, which was founded by Kim Jong-un's grandfather Kim Il-sung.

"Jang desperately worked to form a faction within the party by creating illusions about him and winning those weak in faith and flatterers to his side," the KCNA said.

"Prompted by his politically motivated ambition, he tried to increase his power and build his base for realizing it by implanting those who had been punished for their serious wrongs in the past into the ranks of officials of departments of the party central committee and units under them."

The KCNA even accused Jang, the husband of leader Kim's aunt, Kim Kyong-hui, of having improper relations with multiple women and having used drugs while wasting hard-earned foreign currency at casinos.

Analysts point out that the announcement makes clear the exit of Jang, who served as second-in-command during the past several decades and played a big role in Kim Jong-un's unexpected ascent to power.

The NIS said early last week that Jang was deprived of all his official titles and two of his confidants were executed last month, which prodded pundits in the South to suggest there was a major power shakeup in the isolated country.

"Both of Kim Jung-un's two predecessors, his grandfather and father, used purges to do away with any potential threats to the regime, and the third-generation ruler has also turned to the conventional traits of his family," said Professor Son Tae-gyu at Dankook University.

"The North Korean leader is expected to put his men to the fore in the near future. The Seoul administration must keep an eye on the changes taking place in Pyongyang."