Senior aide to Kim Jong Un dies in North Korea car crash

A North Korean governing party secretary and key foreign policy aide to the country's young and relatively inexperienced leader, Kim Jong Un, has died in a car crah, the country's official news media reported on Wednesday.

The death of Kim Yang Gon, head of the United Front Department of the Workers' Party of Korea, deprived Kim Jong Un of one of his most seasoned advisers in his country's relations with the outside world. The department is in charge of handling North Korea's dealings with the South.

Kim Yang Gon (73) was a familiar face for negotiators from South Korea who have haggled with the North for years over issues such as its pursuit of nuclear weapons and the two Koreas' efforts to arrange temporary reunions of relatives separated by the Korean War six decades ago.

The North Korean news media did not provide details of Kim Yang Gon’s death; however, it called him “a loyal revolutionary warrior” and one of the leader Kim Jong Un’s “closest comrades.”

Defused standoff

As recently as August, the party secretary joined the North Korean delegation at talks with the South that defused a military standoff between the two, which was originally triggered by an explosion of land mines that maimed two South Korean soldiers on the border.

South Korean analysts believe that seasoned policy aides like Kim Yang Gon served as a calming voice for the young Kim Jong Un, advising him on when to employ gestures of reconciliation and when to use brinkmanship and saber rattling to shore up his leadership image in the highly militarised country.

With the news of Kim Yang Gon’s death, North Korean news media delivered another surprise: The list of senior officials joining the funeral committee included Choe Ryong Hae. Mr Choe, once considered number two in the North Korean hierarchy, disappeared suddenly from public view this year. Last month, South Korea’s spy agency told lawmakers in Seoul that it believed that Kim Jong Un had banished Mr Choe to a collective farm for re-education.

New York Times