North Korea’s top official on South Korea relations dies

Kim Yang Gon, a high-ranking North Korean official tasked with easing the fractious relationship with South Korea, has died in an automobile accident, the state-run KCNA news agency said.

Kim Yang-gon, North Korea’s top man in charge of inter-Korean relations, died in a vehicle crash on Tuesday.

KCNA said Kim was Kim Jong-Un’s “closest comrade, a solid revolutionary partner” and that the secretive state’s leader would head an 80-member state funeral on Thursday.

Kim Yang-Gon, who was a secretary of the ruling Workers’ Party, “died in a traffic accident at 6:15 am Tuesday at age 73”, the Korean Central News Agency said, without giving further details of the incident.

Kim Yang-Gon’s predecessor Kim Yong-Sun, who helped arrange the landmark summit between South Korean president Kim Dae-Jung and Kim Jong-Il, also perished in a traffic accident in 2003.

Kim and Hwang Pyong So, the reclusive regime’s leader’s deputy and political director of North Korea’s army, attended high-level talks inside the Demilitarized Zone.

“The concrete wall is heavily fortified with watch towers and structures that can be equipped with heavy weaponry in a short time”, read the Monday edition of the Rodong Sinmun, according to NK News, an English language website that carries news on North Korea “The wall has automated iron gates that can be opened at any time for South Korean forces to march into North Korea”.

Kim’s death is widely seen as a blow to efforts for dialogue and reconciliation between the two rivals. Earlier this month, the rival Koreas ended rare high-level talks without any agreement.

Kim Jong Un has dismissed a string of top aides since he took over when his father died suddenly in 2011.

South Korea has previously offered similar condolences when senior North Korean officials died. South Korean media reported Choe’s involvement in the funeral as a sign that he might have restored his power.