Kim Yong-ju

Kim Yong -ju (* 1920 in Mangyongdae in Heijo, sub-province Heian Nando Chosen Province, at that time the Japanese Empire, present-day North Korea) is a North Korean politician. He is an Honorary Vice President of the Supreme People's Assembly.

Kim Yong -ju is the youngest brother of the late 1994 North Korean President Kim Il-sung, and thus an uncle of the deceased in December 2011, dictator Kim Jong- il. As a member of the Kim family it has a special veneration in North Korea.

Kim Yong -ju studied at the Moscow State University and Moscow School of cadres of the Communist Party. Upon his return to North Korea, he worked for a long time in the Organization Department of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea ( WPK ). In 1966 he was appointed candidates of the Central Committee and secretary of the Politburo. By the end of the 1960s, he rose in the party hierarchy and was eventually claimed his brother the most important functionary of the WPK. For a time he was considered a potential successor to Kim Il-sung's head of state.

Usually Kim did not appear publicly in appearance. One of the few exceptions were the talks between North and South Korea in 1972. Starting in 1974, he spent a year as deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers. Then he disappeared from the public and did not occur nearly 20 years older in appearance. Only in the 1990s, he was seen again on public occasions. Since 1998 he has been deputy of the Supreme People's Assembly and the Honorary Vice President.