South Korea has
said Kim Jong Un is "alive and well", casting doubts again on
speculation that the North Korean leader is seriously ill after undergoing
heart surgery.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was last seen in public on 11 April |
"Our
government position is firm," Moon Chung-in, the top foreign policy
adviser to South Korean President Moon Jae-in, told CNN.
"Kim
Jong Un is alive and well. He has been staying in the Wonsan area since 13
April. No suspicious movements have so far been detected."
Kim, 36, was last seen in public on
11 April at a meeting of the ruling Workers' Party politburo.
But when the country celebrated the
birthday of his late grandfather and state founder Kim Il Sung four days later,
he was absent.
Since then there have been
conflicting accounts about his whereabouts and health, fanned by his heavy
smoking, apparent weight gain since taking power and family history of
cardiovascular problems.
CNN last week reported that Kim was
in "grave danger" following the surgical procedure, citing an
anonymous US official.
Daily
NK, a website run mostly by North Korean defectors, also said last week that
Kim was recovering at a villa in Hyangsan County in North P'yongan province
after having surgery on 12 April.
News agency Newsis cited South
Korean intelligence sources on Friday as reporting that a special train for
Kim's use had been seen in Wonsan, while the dictator's private plane remained
in Pyongyang.
The
agency reported that Kim may be sheltering from COVID-19,
the respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus.
A
report by 38 North, a Washington-based project that monitors North Korea, said:
"The train's presence does not prove the whereabouts of the North Korean
leader or indicate anything about his health but it does lend weight to reports
that Kim is staying at an elite area on the country's eastern coast."
Reporting from inside North Korea
is notoriously difficult because of tight controls on information within the
secretive state.
Kim,
a third-generation hereditary leader who came to power after his father's death
in 2011, has no clear successor in his nuclear-armed country. This could
present a major international risk.
He
has disappeared from coverage in North Korean state media before.
Kim vanished for more than a
month in 2014 and North Korean state TV later showed him walking with a limp.
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