High-ranking North Korean official Choe Thae Bok died at the age of 93 during the weekend, according to an obituary published in the DPRK’s state-run newspaper Rodong Sinmun on Jan. 21. 

His decades-long career centered on education and foreign policy – and the now-shattered dream of unification was a fundamental concept in both spheres. 

Back in 1987, Choe gave a speech at a public demonstration in Pyongyang, titled “Let us stop and shatter the criminal machinations of the American imperialists and their running dogs, those who reject the dialog between the North and the South and seek the eternal division.”