Seoul says no information on whether Kim Jong-il's health is failing

By Kim Hyun
SEOUL, June 29 (Yonhap) -- South Korea has no information on whether North Korean
leader Kim Jong-il's health is failing but understands his public activities are
continuing as usual, the Unification Ministry said Monday.
Kim, 67, is believed to be recuperating after reportedly suffering a stroke in
August last year.
But skepticism about his health still lingers, with photographs released by state
media earlier this year showing a much leaner Kim with pale complexion.
"As we have said before, we maintain our position on being cautious about
Chairman Kim Jong-il's health and his physical condition," ministry spokesman
Chun Hae-sung said in a briefing, pressed about a local news report that
suggested his health is deteriorating.
"At this time, there is nothing that we have heard about whether his health
condition is becoming worse," he said, "We can just say his public, official
activities have been reported last week as well."
Kim, apparently driven by health concerns, is said to have named his third and
youngest son, Jong-un, as his successor. North Korean media have not confirmed
the selection, but South Korea's National Intelligence Agency said earlier this
month that the power transfer appears to be underway. The spy agency said it has
acquired information that Pyongyang, days after its May 25 nuclear test, sent a
document to diplomats abroad to notify them that the youngest son is being
groomed.
Many analysts link North Korea's recent aggressive behavior to the succession
process. Hyun Seong-il, a former North Korean diplomat who defected to South
Korea in 1996, said in a forum that the recent nuclear and missile tests were a
show of "defensive bravado" and Pyongyang is unlikely to attempt a military
provocation that may develop into a full-scale war.
Kim's alleged stroke raised a sense of crisis and insecurity among the country's
power elite, Hyun said, and they have concluded that the succession and a nuclear
weapons program are essential in keeping the monarchistic regime afloat even
after Kim dies.
"As long as Kim Jong-il continues to be in poor health, with Kim being the
central force buttressing the regime, North Korea will continue to stick to the
hardline posture in its overall domestic and foreign policy so as to ward off any
possible impact to the regime's security," Hyun, now a think-tank analyst, said
at a forum hosted by the North Korea Intellectuals Society, a group of North
Korean defectors in Seoul.
hkim@yna.co.kr
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