No Kwang Chol
No Kwang Chol (No Kwang-ch’o’l) is Minister of National Defense. He is also a deputy to the Supreme People’s Assembly [SPA]. No was appointed for his second term of office as defense minister in September 2024 which means he has de facto member status on the Workers’ Party of Korea [WPK] Central Committee and the WPK Central Military Commission [CMC].
No is highly intelligent and a competent manager, having held both civilian and military positions, and leading diverse Korean People’s Army [KPA] units and organizations. According to his passport records, he was born in 1958. He held a variety of headquarters and command positions and first came to attention when he was elected to the 11th Supreme People’s Assembly in 2003. He was elected an alternate (candidate) member of the WPK Central Committee during the 3rd Party Conference on 28 September 2010. He was a member of Kim Jong Il’s (Kim Cho’ng-il) Funeral Committee (#204).
No Kwang Chol was appointed 1st Vice Minister of National Defense in 2015 and held the position for about a year. In 2016, he migrated to a civilian position as Chairman of the Second Economy Commission (a/k/a Second Economic Committee), which manages defense allocation and manufacturing and controls a network of munitions and component parts’ production units. No was elected to full member status on the WPK Central Committee and alternate (candidate) member of the WPK Political Bureau during the 7th Party Congress in 2016.
In 2018, Gen. No was appointed defense minister following the retirement of Gen. Pak Yong Sik (Pak Yo’ng-sik). He was also appointed to the WPK Central Military Commission and, in 2019, appointed to the State Affairs Commission. At the end of 2019, No was removed office and appointed commander of the forward-deployed I Corps. He was later appointed to lead a working group in one of the KPA General Staff’s research institutes.
On 8 October 2024, No Kwang Chol was appointed Minister of National Defense for the second time. On 14 October 2024, Gen. No spoke about military modernization when Kim Jong Un convened a consultative meeting of DPRK national security principals.
