No health problems for North Korea's Kim, official says
10 Sep 2008 04:29:18 GMT Source: Reuters
(Recasts with North Korean official's comment) By Jon Herskovitz and Jack Kim SEOUL, Sept 10 (Reuters) - North Korean leader Kim Jong-il is not seriously ill, a top official in the secretive state was quoted as saying on Wednesday, dismissing speculation of a possible power shift in the world's first communist dynasty. "(There is) no problem," North Korea's nominal number two leader Kim Yong-nam told Japan's Kyodo news agency in Pyongyang. Kim Jong-il, long-suspected of suffering chronic illness, was conspicuously absent from a parade on Tuesday to mark the 60th anniversary of the communist state. A U.S. intelligence official said the reclusive leader may have suffered a stroke. Senior North Korean diplomat Song Il-ho told Kyodo earlier on Wednesday: "We see such reports as not only worthless, but rather as a conspiracy plot." If Kim takes a turn for the worse, it would open the possibility for the first serious power vacuum in a state that has repeatedly threatened to reduce its wealthy South Korean neighbour to ashes, test-fired missiles toward Japan and worked on building a nuclear arsenal to hold off the U.S. army. But analysts cautioned against reading too much into the public appearances of Kim, who can drop out of sight for months and then show up for inspection tours to factories and farms. South Korean markets, used to speculation about the secretive state, gave a muted response to the news of Kim's illness with the main stock index mostly unchanged in early trading. But investors said the news reminded them of the country's risks. "If Kim is indeed gravely ill or even worse, dead, this cannot be good for the market in the short-term, as political instability and uncertainties on the North will heighten South Korea's geopolitical risks," said Lee Kyoung-su of Taurus Investment & Securities. (Additional reporting by Park Jung-youn in Seoul and Isabel Reynolds in Tokyo; Editing by Jonathan Thatcher and Jerry Norton)
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il smiles as he inspects the Sinam cooperative farm in Ryongchon county in North Korea, in this undated photo released by Korea News Service in Tokyo June ...
