North Korean official responsible for relations with South Korea dies

Kim Yang-gon’s role in charge of the unit handling inter-Korean ties saw him move closer to leader Kim Jong-un in recent months.

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. Kim’s predecessor, Kim Yong Sun, reportedly died in a traffic accident in 2003.

With Kim’s death, concerns have been raised that relations between the two Koreas may deteriorate.

Those talks produced a breakthrough that ended the stand-off and an agreement for the two sides to work to hold more discussions to improve ties.

The KCNA said the North’s leader Kim could hardly “repress his bitter grief” for long, saying that his death is a “great loss” to the country, the KCNA said. Han Park, a professor of worldwide relations at the University of Georgia, tells CNN that auto crashes are very rare in North Korea and the negotiator’s death looks suspicious.

Choe’s reinstatement was revealed when North Korea announced a state funeral committee for Kim Yang Gon, a senior official who died in a traffic accident on Tuesday.

Following Kim Yang-gon’s death, North Korean media published a list of people who will attend his funeral.

“This raises worries that an extended suspension in inter- Korean dialogue may be inevitable due to his death”, Cheong Seong-chang, a North Korea analyst at the Sejong Institute near Seoul, said by text message.

Kim was 73 and killed in a auto accident, though the agency did not specify where the accident occurred or who else, if anyone, was involved.

“The likelihood of North Korea’s fourth nuclear test is not so high in light of the increasing security cooperation between the South, the US and Japan, and the resulting additional worldwide sanctions”.

Kim Yang-gon visited South Korea in 2009 to pay his respects to late President Kim Dae-jung, who held the first inter-Korean summit with Kim Jong-il in 2000.

But following discussions have made little progress in resolving key problems, including reunions for families separated by war as well as the resumption of cross border tours.

Reports of the deaths often come from the NIS, defectors or other sources rather than North Korean state media.