North Korea leader Kim Jung Un will lead a funeral on Thursday for his close aide Kim Yang Gon who has died in a car crash, the North’s state media KCNA reported on Wednesday.
"Comrade Kim Yang Gon, a Workers' Party secretary and the member of the party Central Committee Politbureau... died in a traffic accident at 6:15 am Tuesday at age 73," the North's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.
KCNA hailed Kim Yang Gon as a faithful revolutionary of late leaders Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il and "the dearest and the most trustworthy comrade-in-arms" of current leader Kim Jong-Un.
A career party diplomat, Kim Yang Gon was known as a key confidante to Kim Jung Un, advising him on inter-Korean relations and more recently on international relations in general.
Kim's death is widely seen as a blow to efforts for dialogue and reconciliation between the two rivals.
He was part of a high-level delegation in August that helped ease a stand-off with the South after the two sides exchanged artillery fire.
The two Koreas clinched a deal on August 25, pulling the Korean peninsula away from the brink of war. But subsequent vice ministerial talks this month ended in stalemate.
BY Alex Lee
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