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Kim Yong Nam, North Korea’s former ceremonial head of state and a lifelong supporter of the ruling dynasty, has died aged 97, according to state media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He held the role of president of Pyongyang’s rubber-stamp Supreme People’s Assembly from 1998 to 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kim Yong Nam served in various diplomatic roles under the regimes of the country’s founder Kim Il Sung, his son Kim Jong Il, and his grandson Kim Jong Un – though was not related to the family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He died of multiple organ failure on 3 November, according to the North’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The agency described him as an “old-generation revolutionary who left extraordinary achievements in the development history of our party and country”. A state funeral has been held for him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kim Yong Nam was born when the Korean peninsula was under Japanese colonial rule, into what KCNA called a family of “anti-Japanese patriots”. He attended Kim Il Sung University in Pyongyang and also studied in Moscow, before beginning his career in the 1950s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Starting out as a low-ranking official in the ruling party, he rose to become foreign minister and then served as chairman of the Supreme People’s Assembly for nearly all of Kim Jong Il’s reign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even as real power remained in the hands of the ruling Kim family, Kim Yong Nam was often seen as the face of North Korea on the international stage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2018, he led a North Korean delegation to South Korea during the Winter Olympics, where he met the South’s then-president Moon Jae-in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kim Yo Jong, Kim Jong Un’s influential sister, was part of the delegation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kim Yong Nam also previously met two other former South Korean presidents: Kim Dae-jung in 2000, and Roh Moo-hyun in 2007 – on both occasions, at inter-Korean summits respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
South Korea’s Unification Minister Chung Dong-young offered condolences, saying he had “meaningful conversations about peace in the Korean peninsula” with Kim Yong Nam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n