BEIJING – Kim Yong Nam, former chief of North Korea’s parliament who long served as the country’s ceremonial head of state, has died at the age of 97, with leader Kim Jong Un expressing deep condolences over his death, state-run media said Tuesday.
Kim Yong Nam, who also supported the country’s late founder Kim Il Sung and his successor Kim Jong Il — grandfather and father of Kim Jong Un — mainly worked in the field of diplomacy for more than half a century.
He died of multiple organ failure on Monday after battling colorectal cancer since June last year. Kim Jong Un visited his bier early Tuesday, the official Korean Central News Agency said.
Kim Yong Nam received then Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi at an airport during his first visit to Pyongyang in September 2002 for talks with Kim Jong Il.
In February 2018, Kim Yong Nam traveled to South Korea with Kim Yo Jong, the younger sister and close aide of Kim Jong Un, to attend the opening ceremony of the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics and held talks with then South Korean President Moon Jae In.
Born in February 1928 in Pyongyang, Kim Yong Nam studied at Moscow State University after graduating from Kim Il Sung University. In the 1950s, he started to be involved in diplomatic activities at the international department of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea, according to KCNA and South Korean government data.
Kim Yong Nam became a member of the Politburo in 1978 and assumed the posts of deputy prime minister and foreign minister in 1983. He frequently met with foreign delegates visiting North Korea and actively engaged in diplomacy with other developing countries.
He was appointed head of the Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly in 1998 and became a member of the ruling party’s top leadership — the presidium of its political bureau — in 2010. He retired as the ceremonial head of state in 2019.