N. Koreans in Beijing commemorate 3rd anniversary of Kim death
2014/12/17 13:36
BEIJING, Dec. 17 (Yonhap) -- On the third anniversary of the death of former North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, North Korean people in Beijing held a memorial at their embassy compound Wednesday.
Dressed in black suits and overcoats, scores of North Koreans, mostly stone-faced, carrying chrysanthemums were seen entering the embassy building. The North Korean national flag flew at half mast during the memorial at the embassy in central Beijing.
After the memorial, a North Korean woman in her 30s left the embassy and said that, "One minute of silence was held toward the sky of Pyongyang" in a tribute to the late Kim.
Security was tight around the North Korean embassy with Chinese police vehicles and plain-clothed Chinese police officers patrolling the embassy.
Kim Jong-il, whose iron-fist rule and pursuit of nuclear weapons stoked regional tensions for more than a decade, died of heart failure on Dec. 17, 2011, at the age of 69, passing power onto his youngest son and the current leader, Kim Jong-un.
Under Confucianism tradition, Wednesday's third anniversary of Kim's death is significant for the young leader because it means the end of the three-year period of official mourning for his father, paving the way for the current leader to pursue new policies in terms of both politics and economics, analysts said.
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