Kim Yong Nam, North Korea’s longtime ceremonial head of state and a fixture in the country’s political theater for decades, has died at the age of 97. His passing on Monday, November 3, 2025, was announced by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on Tuesday, which reported that he succumbed to multiple organ failure, with some sources noting a connection to cancer. The news marks the end of an era for a man whose career spanned the reigns of three generations of the Kim dynasty, yet who remained, intriguingly, outside the ruling family itself.
Kim Yong Nam’s death prompted an immediate response from North Korea’s current leader, Kim Jong Un, who visited the bier of the late statesman early Tuesday to pay his respects. According to KCNA, a state funeral was scheduled for Thursday, November 6, 2025, underscoring the high regard in which Kim Yong Nam was held by the regime. A list of 100 funeral committee members was released, with Kim Jong Un’s name at the very top—a symbolic gesture of the leader’s personal involvement and the deceased’s stature.
Born in 1928 in Pyongyang, during the harsh years of Japanese colonial rule, Kim Yong Nam was raised in what KCNA described as a “patriotic family” known for its resistance to Japanese occupation. He attended the newly established Kim Il Sung University in Pyongyang and furthered his studies at Moscow State University, setting the stage for a career that would intertwine with North Korea’s tumultuous modern history. By the mid-1950s, he had joined the ruling Workers’ Party and began his ascent through the ranks of the North Korean bureaucracy.
Kim Yong Nam’s rise was steady and, by North Korean standards, remarkably stable. He survived the political purges that claimed many of his contemporaries, including the infamous execution of Kim Jong Un’s uncle, Chang Song Thaek, in 2013. He was appointed to the Politburo in 1978, served as foreign minister for 15 years starting in 1983—a period that saw the collapse of the Soviet Union and North Korea’s increasing isolation—and, from 1998 to April 2019, held the title of president of the Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly. This position made him North Korea’s nominal head of state, the official face of the country in diplomatic affairs, though real power always rested with the Kim family.
Despite his high profile, Kim Yong Nam was not a member of the ruling dynasty. KCNA and international media alike have emphasized that he was “not related to Kim Jong Un,” who, as the grandson of founder Kim Il Sung, inherited the country’s leadership in 2011 after the death of his father, Kim Jong Il. Kim Yong Nam’s role was to faithfully represent and uphold the party’s ideology and the Kim dynasty’s leadership. As KCNA put it, “Comrade Kim Yong Nam faithfully upheld the party’s ideology and leadership and displayed his distinctive competence and experience on the international stage, making notable contributions in the history of our country’s politics and diplomacy.”
Kim Yong Nam became well known abroad for his deep, booming voice and his often propaganda-laden speeches at major state events. He was frequently the one greeting foreign dignitaries, standing in for the Kim family at summits and ceremonies. A quintessential bureaucrat, he was described by former Washington Post reporter Don Oberdorfer as “cordial and relaxed” before business, but “relentlessly followed his script” once work began, drawing comparisons to the Soviet Union’s legendary foreign minister Andrei Gromyko.
His diplomatic career was marked by a particular expertise in so-called third-world diplomacy. He was a regular at gatherings of non-aligned nations, such as the 2012 Non-Aligned Movement summit in Iran, and was often seen as North Korea’s international face during periods of relative openness. Yet, his loyalty to the Kim dynasty was unwavering. In 1994, upon the death of Kim Il Sung, he delivered the official elegy and later formally nominated Kim Jong Il as chairman of the National Defense Commission after a three-year mourning period—both highly symbolic acts of allegiance.
Kim Yong Nam’s international prominence peaked during the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in South Korea. In a rare moment of North-South diplomacy, he led a North Korean delegation that included Kim Yo Jong, Kim Jong Un’s influential sister. The delegation met with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, and, in a memorable scene, Kim Yong Nam and Kim Yo Jong sat just feet away from then-U.S. Vice President Mike Pence at the opening ceremony, though no direct contact was made. This event marked the highest-level visit by a North Korean official to South Korea since 2014 and was seen as a gesture of potential thawing in inter-Korean relations.
Throughout his career, Kim Yong Nam also met with former South Korean presidents Kim Dae-jung in 2000 and Roh Moo-hyun in 2007 during inter-Korean summits, further cementing his role as a key diplomatic figure. South Korea’s Unification Minister Chung Dong-young expressed condolences on his passing, recalling “meaningful conversations about peace in the Korean peninsula” with Kim Yong Nam and acknowledging his role in opening North-South dialogue during the 2018 Olympics.
Despite his longevity, Kim Yong Nam’s influence waned in his later years, largely due to his age. In April 2019, he was replaced as head of the Supreme People’s Assembly by Choe Ryong Hae, a close confidant of Kim Jong Un and former top political officer of North Korea’s million-strong military. But unlike many North Korean officials who fell out of favor—sometimes with fatal consequences—Kim Yong Nam managed to avoid purges, demotions, or public disgrace. As former North Korean diplomat Thae Yong Ho told the BBC, Kim Yong Nam “never made his own opinions known... He had no close [allies] or enemies. He never showed any creativity. He never put out a new policy. He only repeated what the Kim family have said before.” Thae described him as “the perfect role model of how to survive for a long time in North Korea,” maintaining a “clean” reputation and never uttering a problematic word.
Kim Yong Nam’s legacy, then, is one of steadfast loyalty and survival amid a political landscape notorious for its volatility. His life offers a window into the workings of North Korea’s elite—a world where power is tightly controlled, but where a skilled bureaucrat, if careful, can endure for decades. With his passing, North Korea loses one of its last links to the revolutionary generation and a living symbol of the regime’s continuity through turbulent times.
