N. Korean leader expresses deep grief over death of top aide

“We will continue to work patiently to achieve peace on the Korean Peninsula and regional stability”.

The Chinese message expressed appreciation for Mr. Kim’s achievements in promoting relations between North and South Korea.

North Korea’s efforts to enhance its military over the past year include tests of submarine-launched missiles, as well as the enlargement of the launchpad at its main land-based missile launch site.

North Korean spy chief Kim Yang Gon gets in a auto upon his arrival at the transit office near the truce village of Panmunjom in the demilitarized zone that separates the two Koreas in Paju, north of Seoul, in this file picture taken November 29, 2007. “We will be ready to openly discuss issues relating to the division between North and South Koreans and the two countries’ unification”.

The young leader paid his respects in person at Kim Yang Gon’s funeral bier, state media reported, publishing photos of the visit.

He vowed to improve North Korea’s struggling economy.

He has delivered his New Year speech live on national television for the past four years.

Shortly after a 2012 nuclear deal with Pyongyang, the United States had asked North Korea’s chief nuclear envoy to meet bilaterally with his South Korean counterpart, according to a newly released email of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. “We must create a turnaround in economic development”.

Conspiracy theories have emerged among analysts suggesting that Kim’s death may not have been as accidental as the North claimed, and that he might have carried the blame for a lack of progress on the South Korea front.

Friday’s speech kicked off a year that will see the first congress of North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party to be convened for 35 years – another rare opportunity to signal any significant policy shifts or reshuffle the party leadership. While the August agreement had led to more reunions of Korean families separated since the Korean War, subsequent senior-level dialogue collapsed in early December over the inability to even reach consensus on an agenda. Instead, Kim made more at least one reference toward “opening the way to improving North-South relations”.

The speech was Kim’s fourth since becoming leader in 2011 when his father, Kim Jong Il, died, sparking a long and turbulent succession process marked by several bloody purges in the isolated country. “The hard-liners might have feared Kim’s growing influence”, Ahn said.