A Japanese newspaper says North Korea transferred the task of handling South Korea and Japan relations from the North Korea Workers’ Party’s United Front Department to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The Sankei Shimbun also quoted an anonymous source as saying that North Korea’s chief nuclear envoy Kim Gye-kwan told a U.S. visitor late last year that North Korea will conduct a sweeping change in its diplomatic policies in 2012. 2012 is a target year that North Korea has claimed it will become a “powerful and prosperous nation.”