North Korean top leader diesNordkoreansk topp död

TT

Updated 08.05 | Published 08.00

          

          

         North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un honors the late Kim Yong-Nam on Tuesday in a photo                     distributed by the Pyongyang regime. 

         1 / 2Photo: Kcna/Korea News Service Via AP/TT

North Korean statesman Kim Yong-Nam, who served under three of the leaders of the Kim dynasty, has died.

Kim Yong-Nam began his political career in the 1950s and held several prominent roles in the closed one-party state, including as chairman of the Supreme People's Assembly and as foreign minister.

He managed to maintain his positions of power within the state apparatus through three generations of the incumbent Kim dynasty, which has continuously held power in the country since the Korean War and has often carried out purges of the political elite.

According to former North Korean diplomat Thae Yong-Ho, Kim Yong-Nam never said anything that the regime could consider problematic.

– He never said what he thought, he had neither close allies nor enemies. He showed no creativity or presented any line of his own. He just repeated what the Kim family said, Thae tells the BBC.

Kim Yong-Nam was 97 years old.