Latest move follows several days of reshuffling at the highest levels of nation’s powerful military establishment.

North Korea says its leader Kim Jong-un has been promoted to marshal, cementing his status at the top of the nation’s military.

North Korean state media made the announcement on Wednesday in a special bulletin.

The move follows several days of reshuffling at the highest levels of North Korea’s most powerful institution.

The changes are widely seen by outside observers as an attempt by the new leader to put his stamp on the government he inherited seven months ago when his father Kim Jong-il died.

On Tuesday, the country also named a new vice-marshal in the army, a day after it emerged that the country’s army chief had been relieved of duties due to illness.

The decision to appoint Hyon Yong-chol was taken on Monday by the ruling party’s central military commission and the country’s national defence commission, the official news agency KCNA said.

The title of marshal was previously held by Kim’s father and grandfather.

The “Marshal of the DPRK” rank was first held by North Korea’s founding father Kim Il-sung, until he was promoted to generalissimo in 1992, two years before he died of a heart attack.

His son Jong-il – Jong-un’s father – was also addressed as Marshal of the DPRK before he was posthumously awarded the title of generalissimo in February this year.

Jong-un became a general in September 2010. His promotion to the new rank came days after he sacked army chief Ri Yong-ho as part of a reshuffle apparently aimed at imposing himself on the country’s 1.2-million-strong military.

With Hyon promoted to vice-marshal, Jong-un apparently needed a new rank befitting him as the supreme commander of the military, Cheong Seong-chang of the Sejong Institute said.

“This is the only title left for Jong-un to decorate himself with after he assumed almost all party and army positions,” he said.