Report: N. Korea officials deny leader Kim is ill

[September 10, 2008]  SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- North Korea denied Wednesday that leader Kim Jong Il is seriously ill, granting a foreign news outlet rare interviews with top officials who dismissed reports questioning Kim's health following his absence from a key ceremony.

Speculation has intensified that Kim may have taken ill after he missed a parade Tuesday commemorating the communist state's founding 60 years ago. That followed weeks of absence from public view and rumors that foreign doctors were brought in to the isolated nation to possibly treat him.

On Wednesday, North Korea's No. 2 leader and ceremonial head of state, Kim Yong Nam, said there is "no problem" with the supreme leader, and senior diplomat Song Il Ho also said reports about Kim Jong Il's health are "not true," according to Japan's Kyodo News agency.

"We see such reports as not only worthless, but rather as a conspiracy plot," Song told Kyodo in what the agency said was North Korea's first reaction to the reports. "Western media have reported falsehoods before," he said, according to the report from Pyongyang.

It was not the first time North Korea sent a message to the outside world through Kyodo. Kim Yong Nam also gave the news organization an interview two days after North Korea carried out its first-ever nuclear test blast in 2006.

In another indication that the North's leader is alive, Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency said Kim sent a birthday greeting Wednesday to Syria's leader.

Kim wished Syrian President Bashar Assad good health and success in efforts to make the country secure and prosperous, according to the Korean-language message carried by KCNA.

South Korea's main spy agency reported to a parliamentary committee that Kim suffered a cerebral hemorrhage, but he remains conscious and "is able to control the situation," Seoul's Yonhap news agency said.

The National Intelligence Service also told the committee that Kim is in a "recoverable and manageable condition," and that the North is not in a "power vacuum," Yonhap said.

NIS officials could not confirm the report.

News of Kim's possible illness made front-page headlines in South Korean newspapers.

South Korean government officials could not immediately confirm the reports, but South Korean President Lee Myung-bak convened an emergency meeting Wednesday in Seoul to discuss the situation with senior aides, an official at the presidential Blue House said.

Lee's office said in a statement after the meeting that the government will continue to follow the situation closely. It said Seoul had predicted the North's leader may not attend Tuesday's event, but did not elaborate.

Seoul's Defense Ministry said there has been no unusual movement in North Korea's military and the heavily armed border between the two sides remained calm.

North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency devoted its coverage to stories celebrating the country's founding anniversary and gave no hint of Kim's condition. It is considered an absolute taboo for state media to discuss the North Korean leader's health in the totalitarian nation where he is revered almost as a demigod.

Unification Minister Kim Ha-joong told a parliamentary committee that Seoul had confirmed the North's leader did not attend Tuesday's ceremony marking the country's 1948 foundation. But he noted Seoul had not verified media reports about Kim's health.

Yonhap cited an unidentified South Korean government official as saying Kim appeared to have "collapsed," a term that in the Korean language is used when a person becomes suddenly ill. But the official stressed it was certain that Kim has not died, Yonhap said.

Yonhap reported later in the day, also citing an unnamed South Korean government official, that Kim recently underwent surgery for a stroke, but that his condition was not serious enough to be life-threatening. Officials said they could not confirm the report.

Investors shrugged off the speculation about Kim's health. Seoul's benchmark stock index closed 0.7 percent higher after declining 1.7 percent in early trading.

Speculation over Kim's condition spiked Tuesday after he did not appear at a parade commemorating North Korea's founding 60 years ago, one of the country's most celebrated holidays along with the birthdays of Kim and his late father, Kim Il Sung, the country's founding leader.

The 66-year-old Kim, who has been rumored to be in varying degrees of ill health for years, took over the reclusive state upon the death of his father 14 years ago in a hereditary transfer of power. The younger Kim attended the parade on the 50th and 55th anniversaries and was widely expected to do so this year as well.

Since late 2002, North Korea has been locked in a standoff with the United States over its nuclear ambitions.

The country carried out its first nuclear test in 2006, but agreed last year to disable its nuclear facilities in exchange for economic aid and political concessions.

The negotiations, however, hit a snag again recently with the two sides at odds over how to verify North Korea's accounting of its nuclear programs. Washington has delayed its promised removal of Pyongyang from the U.S. terrorism blacklist.

[Associated Press; By JAE-SOON CHANG]

Associated Press Writer Eric Talmadge in Tokyo contributed to this report.

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