North Korea denies Kim is unwell

 

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il was absent on Tuesday North Korea has rebuffed reports that leader Kim Jong-il has collapsed as a result of illness, following his failure to appear at a military parade. "We see such reports as not only worthless but rather as a conspiracy plot," top North Korean diplomat Song Il-ho told Japan's Kyodo news agency. A South Korean diplomat was earlier quoted as saying Mr Kim "almost certainly" has health problems. The reclusive leader was absent from an important military parade on Tuesday. The parade in Pyongyang commemorated the 60th anniversary of the foundation of North Korea. Earlier, Western intelligence officials said Mr Kim might have suffered a stroke. According to the South Korean diplomat, the illness was "not serious enough to threaten his life". "It seems that he had intended to attend the 9 September event in the afternoon but decided not to because of the aftermath of the surgery," Seoul's Yonhap news agency quoted the official as saying. Abnormal Indications The North Korean diplomat in charge of relations with Japan, Song Il-ho, was the first Pyongyang official to dismiss claims that the leader was seriously ill. He told Kyodo news agency that Western media frequently reported falsehoods about his country. The communist state's deputy leader, Kim Yong-nam, was later quoted, again by Kyodo, as saying there was "no problem". South Korean news agency Yonhap reported that South Korean President Lee Myung-bak convened an unscheduled meeting on Wednesday with his senior secretaries to discuss the health of the North Korean leader. "Lee discussed countermeasures to a possible serious illness of the North Korean leader during his unscheduled meeting with senior presidential secretaries," a source at the presidential office said. "The president and his senior aides discussed all abnormal indications from North Korea, as the North's situation appears to be serious following Kim Jong-il's absence from a high-profile founding anniversary parade on Tuesday," the source was reported by Yonhap as saying. A ranking intelligence officer from the Office of the President in Seoul said a number of "unusual goings-on" had been detected in North Korea, but the exact condition of the North Korean leader remained unclear, Yonhap reported. The BBC's John Sudworth, in the South Korean capital Seoul, says rumours were already rife about his well-being before the rally. Pyongyang's second-most senior politician oversaw Tuesday's parade But Mr Kim's absence from the parade - he was not seen in any of the TV coverage of the event - will prompt further speculation, especially given the symbolic importance of the anniversary. This is especially the case, our correspondent says, given that Mr Kim oversaw similarly triumphant occasions for North Korea's 50th and 55th anniversaries. Mr Kim has not been seen in public since early last month. He has been known to disappear from public view for extended periods before, only to reappear unheralded later. This time, however, the rumours of ill health have been given added impetus by news that a team of Chinese doctors was recently summoned to examine him. Food shortages The future direction of North Korea is tightly linked to the personality of the country's reclusive leader. Tuesday's anniversary was observed amid an impasse in international efforts to urge North Korea to abandon its nuclear programme. North Korea agreed in February 2007 to give up its nuclear ambitions in return for aid and diplomatic concessions, but the progress of the deal has been far from smooth. After a long delay, Pyongyang handed over details of its nuclear facilities in June 2008. In return, it expected the US to remove it from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, which the US has yet to do, so the North now appears to be starting to reassemble its main nuclear plant. Meanwhile the World Food Programme estimates that North Korea is suffering from a serious food shortage. The North has relied on foreign assistance to help feed its 23 million people since its state-controlled economy collapsed in the mid-1990s.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7607513.stm