North Korea's foreign minister dies, regime's official news agency reports

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korea's foreign minister has died, the country's official media reported Wednesday. North Korean leader Kim Jong Il expressed his condolences over the death of Foreign Minister Paek Nam Sun, the North's Korean Central News Agency reported. The one-sentence dispatch did not provide any more details, including when or how he died. Paek, who was 78, 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.

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 the hands of leader Kim Jong Il, and state officers stray from the official line at their peril.

His most recent overseas trip was to Malaysia for Asia's largest security conference, called ARF, and then Singapore for an official visit in July last year.

In previous ARF meetings, Paek met U.S. secretaries of state - Madeleine Albright and Colin Powell - but did not hold such a meeting with Condoleezza Rice in July.

Paek's death came as tensions remained high on the Korean peninsula following the North's Oct. 9 nuclear test. North Korea held talks with the United States and other regional powers last month over the nuclear standoff, but they failed to make any progress.

Paek graduated from the prestigious Kim Il Sung University in Pyongyang, and later participated in talks in the 1970s between the two countries' Red Cross societies over issues such as separated families. Diplomatic involvement with South Korea, the North's wealthy neighbour and former battlefield foe, has always been a key to career advancement for North Korean officials.

Paek was also ambassador to Poland in the 1970s.

Paek was an elite loyalist who rose over decades through government ranks. He 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 labour as well as a key missile base.

© The Canadian Press, 2007