A close aide to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un left for Beijing on Wednesday to attend a military parade marking the end of World War II, a news report said.
  

Choe Ryong-hae, a member of the Politburo Presidium and the secretary of the Central Committee of North Korea's ruling Workers' Party, departed for Beijing at around noon, Japan's Kyodo news agency reported from Pyongyang.
  

The planned visit by Choe to China comes as political ties between Pyongyang and Beijing remain strained over North Korea's defiant pursuit of nuclear weapons and its wayward behavior.
  

Choe visited China as a special envoy of Kim in 2013 and met with Chinese President Xi Jinping. (Yonhap)