 SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - Paek Nam Sun, North Korea's foreign minister and the country's top diplomat for nearly 10 years, has died at the age of 78, official media reported Wednesday. The one-sentence dispatch did not provide any more details, including when or how he died. But China's official Xinhua news agency said Paek died Tuesday.
| Shot or toaster accident in the bathtub? |
Paek has been the North's top diplomat since 1998. News reports have said he was suffering from kidney disease. It was unclear who would succeed him.
| And for an AP 'duh' moment ... |
Paek's death is not believed likely to lead to any change in North Korea's foreign policy. The North's Foreign Ministry usually implements policies that have been crafted by the ruling Korean Workers' Party. Power is heavily concentrated in Kim's hands, and state officers stray from the official line at their peril.
Paek was born in 1929 in North Hamgyong, a province on the Chinese and Russian borders that is home to a coal mine notorious for forced labor as well as a key missile base. He graduated from the claimed prestigious Kim Il Sung University in Pyongyang, and later participated in talks in the 1970s between the two countries' Red Thingy Cross societies over issues such as separated families. Paek was also ambassador to Poland in the 1970s. |