Senior official identified for his loyalty to the Kim household served as head of Supreme Folks’s Meeting for twenty years.
Printed On 4 Nov 2025
Kim Yong Nam, the previous nominal head of state of North Korea and a lifelong loyalist of the nation’s ruling household, has died, in response to state media.
The Korean Central Information Company (KCNA) reported on Tuesday that the 97-year-old politician, who led the nation’s parliament for greater than twenty years and served as a senior diplomat, died on Monday of a number of organ failure associated to most cancers.
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“Comrade Kim Yong-nam, an old-generation revolutionary who left extraordinary achievements within the growth historical past of our occasion and nation, wrapped up his noble life at age of 97,” the KCNA mentioned.
KCNA mentioned that chief Kim Jong Un visited the bier of Kim Yong Nam early on Tuesday to specific deep condolences over his dying. It mentioned that Kim Yong Nam’s funeral had been scheduled for Thursday.
Kim Yong Nam, who was identified for propaganda-filled speeches with a deep, booming voice at key state occasions, typically appeared in state media visuals greeting visiting overseas dignitaries on behalf of Kim Jong Un and his late father, Kim Jong Il.
His loyalty to the ruling Kim dynasty allowed him to function the nation’s ceremonial head of state for twenty years.
Kim Yong Nam will not be associated to North Korean chief Kim Jong Un – grandson of the nation’s founder, Kim Il Sung – who took energy upon his father Kim Jong Il’s dying in 2011.
Kim Yong Nam served as head of the Supreme Folks’s Meeting from 1998 to April 2019. The holder of that put up is North Korea’s nominal head of state, although the true energy has been held by the Kim household, which has dominated the nation since its formal basis in 1948.
In 1994, when Kim Il Sung died, Kim Yong Nam had learn an elegy to the state’s founder. He additionally undertook the job of formally nominating Kim Jong Il to be chairman of the Nationwide Defence Fee after the son of Kim Il Sung noticed a three-year mourning interval.
In February 2018, he travelled to South Korea with Kim Jong Un’s influential sister, Kim Yo Jong, to attend the opening ceremony of the Pyeongchang Olympic Video games, as Pyongyang sought higher ties with Seoul and Washington after years of heightened animosities on the Korean Peninsula.
The journey made Kim Yong Nam the highest-level North Korean official to go to South Korea since Kim Jong Un despatched a high navy officer to attend the closing ceremony of the 2014 Asian Video games in Incheon, South Korea.
On the Pyeongchang opening ceremony, Kim Yong Nam and Kim Yo Jong sat inside toes of then-United States Vice President Mike Pence, although the 2 sides made no obvious contact.
North Korea’s non permanent diplomatic openness peaked with the summits between Kim Jong Un and US President Donald Trump in 2018 and 2019, however Kim Yong Nam didn’t attend them, and his affect is believed to have waned lately attributable to his age.
In April 2019, he was changed as head of the parliament by Choe Ryong Hae, one in every of Kim Jong Un’s shut confidants who had beforehand served as the highest political officer of North Korea’s 1.2 million-member navy.
A local of Pyongyang, Kim Yong Nam studied at Kim Il Sung College and Moscow State College.
