The reshuffle will see Kang, who held three key roles in the United Nations, and two other female ministers replaced by men, leaving only two women among Moon’s 19 government ministers, including the prime minister. The president had earlier promised to fill 30 per cent of his ministerial posts with women.

Chung’s nomination, and its timing, is also seen as reflecting Moon’s push to resume denuclearisation talks between Washington and Pyongyang.

“His appointment means President Moon will push through with his peace process for the Korean peninsula with added intensity in his final year in office, in cooperation with the Biden administration as well as neighbouring countries such as China and Japan,” said professor Yang Moo-jin of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul.

Chung’s predecessor Kang was largely in charge of international affairs in general, while Chung served as Moon’s right-hand man in implementing his vision for a sustainable peace and reconciliation with the North, Yang said.

The incoming foreign minister was instrumental in brokering the talks between Trump and Kim, which saw three headline-grabbing meetings between the two but little substantive progress.

North Korea shows off submarine-launched missile at parade, state media reports

In March 2018, after a year in which tensions soared as the two leaders exchanged mutual insults and threats of war, Chung visited Washington to brief Trump that Kim – whom he had met earlier in Pyongyang – wanted to talk and was “committed to denuclearisation”.

An ecstatic Trump immediately accepted the request for a summit, and Chung was deputised to make the announcement in an unorthodox nighttime briefing on the White House lawn.

Trump and Kim met in a blaze of publicity in Singapore in June 2018 and signed a vaguely worded statement on the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula, but a second summit in Hanoi in February 2019 collapsed over sanctions relief and what the North would be willing to give up in return.

The process has been stalled ever since, while the North has showed off several new missiles at military parades in October and earlier this month, when Kim pledged to strengthen its nuclear arsenal.

Antony Blinken, Biden’s nominee as secretary of state, on Tuesday told his Senate confirmation hearing that the new administration would review its entire approach and policy towards North Korea, beginning with close consultations with South Korea and Japan.

Biden’s senior official for Asia policy, Kurt Campbell, has said the administration would have to make an early decision on its approach and not repeat the Obama-era delay that led to “provocative” steps by Pyongyang that prevented engagement.

Campbell had some praise for Trump’s unprecedented summits with Kim, even though no progress was made in persuading the North Korean leader to give up his nuclear weapons.

Kim Jong-un vows to strengthen North Korea’s military capabilities

Kim last week called for more advanced nuclear weapons and dubbed the US “our biggest enemy,” underlining the challenge to Biden, who takes office on Wednesday.

Yang from the University of North Korean Studies said the North, with an expanded and more sophisticated nuclear arsenal, was a different country from four years ago, while its key ally China had also drastically expanded its military might.

“After listening to the South’s advice and opinions, the Biden administration is likely to reach out to North Korea at an early date,” he said.

Additional reporting by Reuters and Agence France-Presse