Kim Yong Nam, Longtime Ceremonial Face of North Korean Diplomacy, Dies at 97

Kim Yong Nam, Longtime Ceremonial Head of State, Dies at 97

Kim Yong Nam, a familiar diplomatic face of the North Korean regime who served as the president of the Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly from 1998 to 2019, has died at age 97, state media reported Tuesday.

The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Kim died Monday of multiple organ failure. KCNA reported that leader Kim Jong Un visited Kim Yong Nam’s bier early Tuesday to offer condolences and that a state funeral is planned for Thursday, with a 100-member funeral committee led by Kim Jong Un.

Official tribute and biography

KCNA praised Kim as a loyal party official who “faithfully upheld the party's ideology and leadership” and credited him with notable contributions on the international stage. The agency stressed that Kim Yong Nam was not related to the Kim family that has ruled the country since its founding in 1948.

Born in 1928, KCNA described him as coming from a patriotic household that resisted Japanese colonial rule. He joined the Workers’ Party in the mid-1950s and held a series of senior posts over many decades, including a 15-year tenure as foreign minister beginning in 1983 and appointment to the Politburo in 1978.

Ceremonial role and diplomatic profile

As president of the Presidium, Kim served as North Korea’s nominal head of state and frequently appeared in state media greeting foreign delegations. Observers say his role was primarily ceremonial: real power remained concentrated in the Kim family, with Kim Jong Un the supreme leader.

Kim’s international visibility included attending the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics delegation that visited South Korea, where he sat near then-U.S. Vice President Mike Pence though the delegations made no apparent contact. That visit marked the highest-level North Korean delegation to the South since 2014 and was part of a brief diplomatic thaw in 2018–19.

Survivor of politics and purges

Kim’s longevity reflected his ability to survive successive political shifts and purges. He remained a fixture even as Kim Jong Un consolidated power and eliminated perceived rivals, including high-profile purges in the 2010s. In April 2019, his influence appeared to wane when Choe Ryong Hae, a close confidant of Kim Jong Un, replaced him.

“Comrade Kim Yong Nam faithfully upheld the party's ideology and leadership and displayed his distinctive competence and experience on the international stage,” KCNA said.

Personal notes

Colleagues and foreign correspondents described Kim as mild-mannered in informal settings but measured and scripted in formal diplomacy; one observer likened his professional style to that of Soviet-era diplomat Andrei Gromyko. He read an elegy for Kim Il Sung in 1994 and formally nominated Kim Jong Il to head the National Defense Commission after the mandated mourning period. He studied at Kim Il Sung University and Moscow State University.

Kim Yong Nam’s death marks the passing of a long-serving bureaucrat who embodied North Korea’s diplomatic face to the world even as the inner levers of power remained tightly held by the ruling dynasty.