North removes Kim portraits

SEOUL — North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has ordered the removal of his portrait from display throughout the Stalinist state, signaling a scaling back of the decades-old adulation of the supreme ruler, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported yesterday.

The order to take down portraits was issued three weeks ago by Mr. Kim himself, who was concerned that he “has been lifted too high,” the agency said.

Also yesterday, North Korea’s official press dropped the glorifying description of “dear leader” for Mr. Kim, Kyodo News Service reported, citing the Japanese monitoring agency Radiopress.

The United States yesterday brushed off both reports.

“I’ll leave it to the analysts,” State Department spokesman Adam Ereli told a press briefing when asked about the reports. “Don’t have a reaction.”

A State Department official, speaking separately on the condition of anonymity, said, “I don’t see anything to get worried about.”

Radiopress said the North’s Korean Central Broadcast, the Korean Central News Agency and other press simply described him as “general secretary of the Workers’ Party of Korea, chairman of the DPRK National Defense Commission and supreme commander of the Korean People’s Army.”

The initials DPRK stand for North Korea’s official name, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Yonhap quoted a source who has “good connections” in Pyongyang as saying Mr. Kim’s portraits were being removed from all public places and homes.

Based on a telephone conversation with a North Korean official, the source said that now only the portraits of Mr. Kim’s father — Kim Il-sung — can be seen at public buildings and residences in Pyongyang, Yonhap said.

The North Korean official told the source that the removal of portraits had “nothing to do with any problem” involving Mr. Kim, who visited a front-line army unit yesterday.

Mr. Kim’s portraits have long been ubiquitous in homes, offices and public buildings across North Korea, where they have hung prominently beside a picture of his father.

The junior Mr. Kim took power when his father, who founded the hermit nation, died in 1994.

South Korean government officials said they had not noticed any distinct change in North Korea. But some North Korea watchers said the removal of portraits could signal a political change.

“If confirmed, it signals a major change in North Korea because Kim Jong-il is the only person who can order the removal of his portraits,” Korea University professor Yoo Ho-yul said.

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