A funeral service is being held on this Wednesday for former Prime Minister Kim Jong-pil who died last weekend.
On the order of the government,... Kim has been posthumously bestowed the Mugunghwa medal, the country's highest order of civil merit.
Kan Hyeong-woo reports.
"The Kingmaker" and "The Eternal No. 2."
Those were the phrases used by many South Koreans to describe former Prime Minister Kim Jong-pil... who died on Saturday at the age of 92.
After an estimated 35-hundred people from all walks of life and from across the political spectrum had come to pay their respects to Kim over the past few days,...his send-off ceremony started early Wednesday morning with a eulogy by former Prime Minister Lee Han-dong.
Former Japanese Prime Minister ( )Yasuhiro Nakasone, an old friend of Kim, sent his son to the service to pay respects on his behalf.
Kim's body was cremated and he will be laid to rest in his family tomb in Buyeo, Chungcheongnam-do Province.
His late wife, Park Young-ok, who died in 2015, is also laid there.

Kim Jong-pil was the founder of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency -- now the National Intelligence Service -- and served as prime minister from 1971 to 1975,... and again from 1998 to 2000.
He also served a record nine terms as a lawmaker.
He was the last of the so-called "Three Kims" who were political heavyweights in the 1980s and 90s... together with former Presidents Kim Dae-jung and Kim Young-sam .
Kan Hyeong-woo, Arirang News