North Korea Calls for Expanding Intelligence Agency's Role Against 'Potential Enemies'

SEOUL, July 10 (Yonhap) -- North Korea has called for expanding the functions and missions of its intelligence agency against "potential enemies," state media said Friday, in a move seen as aimed at strengthening its intelligence gathering against South Korea.

The discussion took place at the first enlarged meeting of the ninth Central Military Commission, presided over by leader Kim Jong-un, the previous day, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. The meeting addressed ways to enhance the Korean People's Army's combat readiness and modernization.

"The meeting suggested tasks and ways for expanding in a many-sided way the functions and missions of the General Reconnaissance and Intelligence Bureau (GRIB)," the report said, describing the bureau as playing "a pivotal role in controlling the potential enemies' threats and gathering key information."

It also called for enhancing its military reconnaissance and intelligence capabilities "in a radical way," according to the KCNA report.

The report did not specify in detail how the bureau's intelligence-gathering capabilities would be expanded.

North Korea is believed to have expanded the General Reconnaissance Bureau, the country's spy agency, into the GRIB, in a bid to strengthen its capabilities of collecting and analyzing external intelligence.

The GRIB's existence first came to light in September, and its chief, Ri Chang-ho, was detected leading overseas operations units during a military parade in Pyongyang on Feb. 25, marking the ninth congress of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea.

Lim Eul-chul, a professor at Kyungnam University's Institute for Far Eastern Studies, said there is a possibility that North Korea could launch increasingly "refined attacks" on non-military sectors, backed by enhanced intelligence, such as "cyber attacks, unmanned aerial reconnaissance and intelligence gathering against key infrastructure in South Korea."

At a press briefing earlier in the day, South Korea's unification ministry said it will "closely monitor" related signs or developments amid concerns over possible North Korean provocations.

The meeting also addressed "the organizational matter of dismissing, transferring and newly appointing leading officers for key posts of the People's Army," it said, suggesting a personnel reshuffle may be under way in the sector.

In addition, the meeting discussed "important political and military tasks for bolstering up the politico-ideological and military technical might of the People's Army and bringing about a qualitative change in strengthening the combat readiness of the army units at all levels."

At the meeting, Kim signed seven written orders implementing major military decisions, according to the report.

"The security and peace of the country and the people cannot be defended with the willingness alone," Kim said, stressing military strength as the foundation of national security.

"Only when we build the strong army and control all and contain threats with its powerful strength, is it possible to achieve the true peace," he said.

The meeting also decided on "upgrading the technical infrastructure of combat systems, bolstering up the nuclear force both in quality and quantity and pushing ahead with the plan for standardizing, specializing and modernizing military bases in a far-sighted way."

Other topics included naval modernization, the remodeling of coal-mining regions nationwide and other construction projects.