South Korea's President Moon Jae-in's office said on Thursday that the head of the state replaced his unification minister, Cho Myoung-gyon appointing a longtime confidant, a scholar who has headed the state-run Korea Institute for National Unification since last April.
The announcement comes soon after the second Trump-Kim summit in Hanoi, which finished abruptly without any deal or declaration due to the parties' failure to agree on the scale of North Korea’s denuclearization and US-led sanctions relief.
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Recently, several US think tanks and South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported that satellite pictures showed works were underway to restore the Sohae Satellite Launching Station at Tongchang-ri, which North Korea pledged to dismantle earlier.