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Top North Korean official dies
SEOUL, South Korea (Reuters) -- A senior North Korean official -- who diplomats say was one of leader Kim Jong Il's top foreign policy advisers -- has died four months after being in a traffic accident, North Korea's official KCNA news agency reported. The report said Kim Yong Sun, who was instrumental in North-South negotiations, died on Sunday at the age of 69. He was in a traffic accident on June 16 and had been receiving hospital treatment, it said, without elaborating on the nature of the accident or his injuries. South Korea's YTN television news said Kim had had brain injuries. Traffic accidents are relatively rare in North Korea, where there are few vehicles, even in the capital Pyongyang. Diplomats in Seoul say there have been rumours about Kim's accident and even of a plot by him to influence who would succeed Kim Jong Il. They say there have also been reports Kim Jong Il wife was in a car crash and that either he or she had been ill. But it is almost impossible to verify such rumours. Kim Jong Il made a public appearance last week for the first time in 40 days when he visited a military farm. He has since visited two border units, according to KCNA. Diplomats say Kim Yong Sun was a close adviser to Kim Jong Il on relations with South Korea. Kim Yong Sun was a member of the Central COmmittee of the Workers' Party. As vice chairman of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland, the body that oversees links with the South, he was Pyongyang's top policy coordinater on relations with Seoul. He was the only senior North Korean officials who sat in at the 2000 summit betweeh Kim Jog Il and South Korean President Kim Dae-jung. Roh Moo-hyung too over from Kim as South Korea's leader earlier this year. "He enthusiastically worked to open a landmark phase of the country's reunification under the banner of the historic June 15 North-South joint declaration," KCNA said, referring to a statement published after June 2000 summit. South Korean officials say there have been reports Kim Yong Sun was a relative of Kim Jong Il through the leader's mother's family. But they say debriefed North Korean defectors have disputed this family connection. Either way, Kim Yong Sun was widely travelled and well connected. He studied in Moscow as well as Pyongyang. The South Korean Unification Ministry, Seoul's counterpart to the committee Kim worked for, said it had no immediate comment on the report. The South Korean Foreign Ministry also said comment would come later. Ban Ki-moon, foreign policy adviser to President Roh, told reporters he could not confirm the death. "How do we know that?" he said. "North Korea said so and there was no evidence that it was not true." Copyright 2003 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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