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Reports of North Korean leader's ill health dismissed
A North Korean official on Friday dismissed reports from last week that leader Kim Jong-il may have suffered a stroke as malicious gossip.
- Agencies
- Published: 09:03 September 19, 2008
Pammunjom: A North Korean official on Friday dismissed reports from last week that leader Kim Jong-il may have suffered a stroke as malicious gossip.
US and South Korean officials said Kim, 66, may have fallen seriously ill, which raised questions about succession in Asia's only communist dynasty and who controls its nuclear arsenal.
"It is sophism by bad people who wish ill for our country," North Korean Foreign Ministry official Hyon Hak-bong said at talks with South Koreans at a truce village on the border dividing the Korean peninsula, according to a pool report.
Kim's suspected illness came as impoverished North Korea was moving away from a disarmament deal it struck with five regional powers to take apart its nuclear weapons program in exchange for massive aid and an end to its international ostracism.
Hyon said his country was ready to restore its Soviet-era nuclear plant that makes arms-grade plutonium.
North Korea began to disable its Yongbyon nuclear plant last November as called for in the deal it struck with China, the United States, Japan, Russia and South Korea.
Last month, North Korea said it planned to restart the ageing nuclear plant because it was angry at the United States for not taking it off a State Department terrorism blacklist.
Washington has said it will remove Pyongyang from the list once the state allows inspectors to verify claims it made about its nuclear arms production. Once removed, the North can better tap into international finance and expand its meager trade.
"The verification matter is a totally different matter from issues of US political concessions," Hyon said, referring to removal from the terrorism list.
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