North Korean leader Kim Jong Un paid his respects on Sunday before the coffin of the country's former speaker of parliament, Choe Thae Bok, who died at the age of 93, official media reported.
Choe Thae Bok died of a heart attack on Saturday, according to the official Rodong Sinmun newspaper.
The North Korean leader went to the funeral ceremony of the former speaker of parliament at dawn on Sunday, with officials from the ruling Workers' Party, "
to express his deep condolences
", according to the daily.
"
Kim Jong Un paid silent tribute to Choe Thae Bok who accomplished remarkable feats in the sacred struggle for the development of the Workers' Party of Korea and the DPRK government
," the article added, using the acronym for the official name of North Korea.
The newspaper described the deceased as "
a revolutionary fighter loyal to President Kim Il Sung and leader Kim Jong Il
", the grandfather and father of the current North Korean number 1.
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Choe Thae Bok, who was elected speaker of the Supreme People's Assembly in 1998 and served in the role until his retirement in 2019, is considered the longest-serving speaker of the North Korean parliament.
Fluent in German, Russian and English, he regularly traveled abroad, according to NK leadership watch, a site specializing in North Korean personalities.
The website adds that Mr Choe had close ties to Kim Kyong Hui, the once-influential aunt of Kim Jong Un but whose husband, Jang Song Thaek, was executed in 2013. He is described as an "
intelligent man with an optimistic and cheerful personality
.
His last public appearance was at an event celebrating North Korea's founding day on September 9, 2022.