noKor’s Kim alive and well – seoul
Photo released in 2019 shows North Korean leader Kim Jong-un riding a white horse across the first snow on Paektu Mountain. A top security adviser to the South’s President Moon Jae-in downplayed rumors over Kim’s health, saying he is alive and well.
SEOUL (AFP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is “alive and well,” according to a top security adviser to the South’s President Moon Jaein, downplaying rumors over Kim’s health following his absence from a key anniversary.
Conjecture over Kim has grown since his conspicuous no-show at the April 15 celebrations for the birthday of his grandfather, North Korea’s founder Kim Il-sung – the most important day in the country’s political calendar.
“Our government position is firm,” Moon Chung-in, Moon’s special adviser on national security, said in an interview with
CNN on Sunday. “Kim Jong-un is alive and well.”
The adviser said that Kim had been staying in Wonsan, a resort town in the country’s east, since April 13.
“No suspicious movements have so far been detected,” the adviser said.
Kim has not made a public appearance since presiding over a Workers’ Party politburo meeting on April 11. The following day, state media reported on him inspecting fighter jets at an air defense unit.
His absence unleashed a series of unconfirmed media reports over his condition, which officials in Seoul previously poured cold water on.
“We have nothing to confirm and no special movement has been detected inside North Korea as of now,” the South’s presidential office said in a statement last week.
South Korea’s unification minister Kim Yeon-chul yesterday reiterated that remained the case, adding that the “confident” conclusion was drawn from “a complex process of intelligence gathering and assessment.”
The comments came two years after Kim and Moon’s first summit in the Demilitarized Zone that divides the Korean peninsula.
Seoul marked this anniversary with a ceremony at the South’s northernmost train station, seeking to highlight its commitment to a cross-border railway project.
Inter-Korean relations are largely frozen, however, with talks between Washington and Pyongyang at a standstill, and there was no indication of any commemoration in the North.
Daily NK, an online media outlet run mostly by North Korean defectors, has reported that Kim was undergoing treatment after a cardiovascular procedure earlier this month.
Citing an unidentified source inside the country, the media website said Kim, who is in his mid-30s, had needed urgent treatment due to heavy smoking, obesity and fatigue.
Soon afterwards, CNN reported that Washington was “monitoring intelligence” that Kim was in “grave danger” after undergoing surgery, quoting what it said was an anonymous United States official.
US President Donald Trump on Thursday rejected reports that Kim was ailing, but declined to state when he was last in touch with him.
The official Rodong Sinmun newspaper yesterday reported that Kim had sent a message of thanks to workers on the giant Wonsan Kalma coastal tourism project.
It was the latest in a series of reports in recent days of statements issued or actions taken in Kim’s name, although none has carried any picture of him.
Satellite images reviewed by 38North, a US-based think tank, showed a train probably belonging to Kim at a station in Wonsan last week.
It cautioned that the train’s presence did not “indicate anything about his health” but did “lend weight” to reports he was staying on the country’s eastern coast.