North Korean leader vows to improve ties with South

During high-level talks between high-ranking officials from North and South Korea held this past August, Kim Yang-gon was on the North Korean delegation along with Vice Marshal Hwang Pyong-so, regarded as the second most powerful person in North Korea.

North Korea’s leader took a conciliatory tone in his New Year speech.

It is unknown who will succeed Kim Yang-gon and his replacement may not be announced until the convening of the 7th Congress of the Korea Workers’ Party in May 2016. That said, other North Korean elites may now be more wary of getting into their cars.

Kim said South Korea should cherish last year’s high-level talks and make continued efforts to seek dialogue.

On Thursday, North Korea’s state television showed still photos of Kim Jong Un at the wake of Kim Yang Gon.

“If invasive outsiders and provocateurs touch us even slightly, we will not be forgiving in the least and sternly with a merciless holy war of justice”, Kim said. “We must create a turnaround in economic development”.

Kim devoted much of the almost 30-minute speech to his preparedness to engage in talks with South Korea for their reunification and his resolve to raise living standards for North Korean citizens, such as by eliminating power shortages as much as possible.

Kim has issued similar calls in his three previous New Year addresses and, as on those occasions, Friday’s speech offered little in terms of specific policy for achieving his economic objectives.

“We don’t have any information that North Korea has developed a H-bomb”, an intelligence official from South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) told Yonhap news agency. The addition of eyeglasses gave Mr. Kim a closer resemblance to his grandfather and North Korea’s first ruler, Kim Il Sung, who is still widely respected by many North Koreans.

Kim Jong-Un, wearing black-rimmed glasses and his trademark black Mao suit, delivered his speech from behind a lectern in a wood-paneled room in the ruling Workers’ Party Central Committee Office Building in Pyongyang.

The impoverished state is under heavy United Nations sanctions relating to its nuclear and missile programmes, which Kim did not mention in his speech.

Seoul blamed Pyongyang, who denied responsibility.

“Kim Yang-gon’s death in a vehicle accident might be interpreted as paying the ultimate price for the collapse of the inter-Korean mini-detente following the August agreement”, Bruce Klingner, a senior Korea expert at the Heritage Foundation, said.

No details of his death were given other than the fact that it came on Tuesday in an automobile accident, and that Kim Yang Gon died at the age of 73, according to Times Of Man.