North Korea says its longtime ceremonial head of state Kim Yong Nam has died

Kim Yong Nam, a quintessential North Korean bureaucrat whose lifelong loyalty to the ruling Kim dynasty allowed him to function the nation’s ceremonial head of state for 20 years, has died, state media reported on Tuesday (November 4, 2025).

The Korean Central News Agency stated Kim Yong Nam, former president of the Presidium of North Korea’s rubber-stamp Supreme People’s Assembly, died on Monday of a number of organ failure on the age of 97.

KCNA stated that North Korean chief Kim Jong Un visited the bier of Kim Yong Nam to specific deep condolences over his loss of life. It stated Kim Yong Nam’s funeral was set for Thursday.

Kim Yong Nam was not associated to Kim Jong Un, the third technology of his household to rule North Korea. Kim Jong Un, grandson of state founder Kim Il Sung, took energy upon his father Kim Jong Il’s loss of life in 2011 within the nation’s second hereditary energy switch.

Kim Yong Nam served as head of the Supreme People’s Assembly from 1998 to April 2019. That publish is North Korea’s nominal head of state, although the true energy was held by the Kim household that has dominated the North since its formal basis in 1948.

Kim Yong Nam, who was recognized for propaganda-filled speeches with a deep, booming voice at key state occasions, usually appeared in state media greeting visiting international dignitaries on behalf of Kim Jong Un and his late father Kim Jong Il.

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 Olympics 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 prime army officer to attend the closing ceremony of the 2014 Asian Games in Incheon.

At the Pyeongchang opening ceremony, Kim Yong Nam and Kim Yo Jong sat inside toes of then-US vice-president Mike Pence, although the 2 sides made no obvious contact.

North Korea’s momentary diplomatic openness peaked with the summits between Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump in 2018 and 2019, however Kim Yong Nam didn’t attend them and his affect was seen as waning as a result of his age.

In April 2019, he was changed by Choe Ryong Hae, considered one of Kim Jong Un’s shut confidants who beforehand served as the highest political officer of the North’s 1.2 million-member army.

Kim Yong Nam’s profession epitomised that of a profitable North Korean bureaucrat. He joined the ruling Workers’ Party shortly after the 1950-53 Korean War and survived main political purges via the Nineteen Seventies. He was appointed to the highly effective Politburo in 1978 and served 15 years as international minister, beginning in 1983. During his tenure, the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union disintegrated, leaving North Korea remoted.

North Korea watchers additionally say Kim Yong Nam had an experience in third-world diplomacy. He was a frequent participant in gatherings of countries that take into account themselves impartial from main energy blocs, together with the 2012 Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit in Iran.

People who met Kim Yong Nam described him as mild-mannered however staunch in his opinions.

“I discovered Kim Yong Nam a puzzling determine. In greetings earlier than enterprise started, he was cordial and relaxed, however as soon as at work, he relentlessly adopted his script in a means that reminded of former Soviet international minister Andrei Gromyko,” former Washington Post reporter Don Oberdofer wrote in his e book, “The Two Koreas”.

In a testomony to his loyalty to the ruling dynasty, Kim Yong Nam learn an elegy to Kim Il Sung when he died in 1994. He additionally undertook the job of formally nominating Kim Jong Il to be chairman of the National Defence Commission after the son noticed a three-year mourning interval.

A local of Pyongyang, Kim Yong Nam studied on the Kim Il Sung University and the Moscow State University. (AP) ARI