North Korea Leader Kim May Be Ill as U.S. Pushes Nuclear Effort

By Jeff Bliss and Heejin Koo

Sept. 10 (Bloomberg) -- North Korean leader Kim Jong Il is sick and may have suffered a stroke in the past month, a U.S. intelligence official said. The possible sidelining of Kim comes as the U.S. is pushing to end North Korean nuclear-arms work.

The official, who declined to be publicly identified, said it was noteworthy that Kim didn't attend the 60th anniversary celebration of North Korea's founding yesterday.

The communist dictatorship had taken a major step toward easing its international isolation by agreeing to abandon the nuclear program in exchange for broader ties with the U.S. and aid for its struggling economy. Implementing the deal has stalled in the past month.

Kim's health may not be behind the threat to start up the Yongbyon reactor, a major facility that is supposed to be shuttered under the accord, according to Gary Samore, a former nonproliferation adviser to President Bill Clinton. Rather, that reversal may be driven by the North Koreans' sense that the U.S. is raising the bar on requirements for verifying the status of the country's nuclear program, he said.

``They believe they have a legitimate complaint,'' Samore, now at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, said in an interview. If Kim is incapacitated or dies, North Korea's nuclear policies are unlikely to change, he added.

Scientists at the Yongbyon plant, which produced weapons- grade plutonium, are moving equipment out of storage and are ``taking some of the steps that would allow them to restart'' the reactor, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters in Washington this week.

Hill in Beijing

The top U.S. negotiator on the North Korea issue, Christopher Hill, conferred last week in Beijing with other governments on the stalled disarmament effort. China hosts a diplomatic forum with Kim's government that includes the U.S., Japan, Russia and South Korea.

U.S. intelligence had other reasons to believe Kim is ill besides the no-show at the anniversary parade, the official said. He declined to describe those conclusions. The Associated Press reported early yesterday about the intelligence assessment of a possible stroke.

The South Korean government said Kim's absence at the celebration was unusual. ``We think that it is highly irregular, since he made an appearance during the 50th and 55th anniversary'' events, Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Ho Nyoun said in an interview.

Succession Scenarios

Kim hasn't publicly signaled a choice of a successor. He has three sons and a brother-in-law, Jang Song Taek, who may be among candidates to ascend to power. Some analysts have suggested that military officers might take over, with the Kim family either out of the picture or providing a figurehead ruler.

If Kim is seriously ill, ``it could be a major turning point for North Korea because he doesn't have a clear successor,'' said David Kang, a government professor at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, and co-author of ``Nuclear North Korea: A Debate on Engagement Strategies.''

``I would imagine whoever takes control of the military will be able to control North Korea,'' Kang added.

A person who answered the telephone at the North Korean mission to the United Nations denied that Kim might have suffered a stroke. ``That is not true,'' the person said before hanging up without identifying himself. A subsequent call to the mission wasn't answered.

Kim is 67, according to a birth date accepted by sources including GlobalSecurity.org, a military-research group, and the U.S. Army War College's Strategic Studies Institute. The North Korean government says Kim is 66 and was born in 1942, a date that some scholars say was chosen for propaganda purposes to celebrate his 40th birthday in 1982, the year his father turned 70.

Hairdo, Cognac

Known for his bouffant hairdo and zip-front olive-green jackets, Kim has led the impoverished country of 23 million people since his father, Kim Il Sung, died in 1994. South Korea's intelligence agency says he favors imported cognac, horse riding and driving fast cars. The little that is known of Kim outside of North Korea tends to come through the filter of the state-run media.

North Koreans are suffering through their worst food shortage in a decade, exacerbated by China's controls on grain exports, the UN said last week. China took the measure to curb surging food prices in its domestic market.

McCormack declined to comment yesterday on Kim's health or the potential ramifications of any illness. ``Obviously this is a very opaque regime,'' McCormack told reporters in Washington. ``We don't necessarily have a good picture into the decision- making processes of the North Korean regime.''

Soviet Support

North Korea emerged as a Soviet-backed state after World War II, when talks between the Soviet Union and the U.S., later involving the UN, failed to reach agreement on unifying the southern and northern parts of the Korean peninsula. In June 1950, North Korean troops crossed into the South, and U.S. forces came to the South's defense under a UN mandate.

A 1953 truce stopped the fighting, while retaining the political division, and no formal peace treaty has been negotiated.

North Korea and the U.S. enjoyed a brief period of warming relations in 2000, after Kim Jong Il held his historic summit with then South Korean President Kim Dae Jung in June.

In October that year, Kim sent Vice Marshall Jo Myong Rok to Washington, who carried with him a letter inviting President Bill Clinton to Pyongyang. That led to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's visit the same month.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jeff Bliss in Washington at jbliss@bloomberg.net; Heejin Koo in Seoul at hjkoo@bloomberg.net