 Despite his purported reformist views, he is reputedly close to Kim Jong-il's sister Kim Kyong-hui and Vice President Yang Hyong-sop of the SPA Presidium.On 6 January 2007, at a mass rally in Pyongyang, he gave a speech praising the North Korean government for building nuclear weapons.On 19 October 2012, he met Zandaakhuu Enkhbold, the Mongolian parliamentary speaker, and the two countries "agreed on the future possibilities of bilateral trade and cooperation in the fields of information technology and human exchanges."