Pak Song-chol

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Korean spelling
Chosŏn'gŭl 박성철
Hancha 朴成哲
Revised
Romanization 		Bak Seong-cheol
McCune-
Reischauer 		Pak Sŏngch'ŏl
Pak Song-chol (1973)

Pak Song-chol (born September 2, 1913 in Gyeongju , then the Japanese Empire , now South Korea , † October 28, 2008 ) was a North Korean politician.

Pak Song-chol studied in Japan during the Japanese rule over Korea . After the end of World War II , he joined the local Communist Party , but returned to his homeland in 1946, where he quickly made a career in the socialist North Korean state. During the Korean War he was in command of the 15th Division of the Korean People's Army with the rank of lieutenant general .

After the end of the Korean War, Pak became the North Korean ambassador to Bulgaria in 1954 . In 1956 he became head of the foreign affairs department of the Central Committee of the Labor Party of Korea (PdAK). In November 1956 he became deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers and deputy foreign minister . From 1959 to 1971 he was North Korea's Foreign Minister , and from September 1961 a member of the Central Committee of the PdAK and from 1964 also of the Politburo . He also became one of the first members of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland in May 1961 .

In 1972 Pak became a member of the Central People's Committee, the leadership of the Council of Ministers. In his capacity as Second Deputy Prime Minister, he visited the South Korean capital Seoul in December 1972 , where he met President Park Chung-hee . In the same year he took part in several bilateral meetings between the two Korean leaderships. From 1976 to 1977 he was Chairman of the Council of Ministers (Head of Government) and in 1977 was appointed one of the official deputies of President Kim Il-sung . He officially held this office until 1997. Most recently he was a member and honorary vice-president of the Supreme People's Assembly of North Korea.

Pak died in 2008 at the age of 95 after a long illness.

literature

  • Tai Sung An: North Korea. A political handbook . Scholarly Resources, Wilmington (Delaware) 1983, ISBN 0-8420-2205-8 (English).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ cf. DPRK senior official this at xinhuanet.com, October 29, 2008
  2. ^ Yonhap News Agency (Ed.): North Korea Handbook . East Gate Books, 2002, ISBN 0-7656-1004-3 , pp. 877 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
personal data
SURNAME Pak, Song-chol
ALTERNATIVE NAMES 박성철 (Hangeul); 朴成哲 (Hanja); Bak, Seong-cheol (Revised Romanization); Pak, Sŏngch'ŏl (McCune-Reischauer)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION North Korean politician
DATE OF BIRTH September 2, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH Gyeongju , then the Japanese Empire, now South Korea
DATE OF DEATH October 28, 2008