S. Korea: Kim suffered apparent stroke

UPDATED:

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) North Korean leader Kim Jong Il is believed to be recovering from an apparent stroke, South Korea’s presidential office said Wednesday, as the communist nation rejected reports questioning Kim’s health as a “conspiracy plot.”

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 being absent from public view and rumors that foreign doctors were brought to the isolated nation to possibly treat him.

On Wednesday, South Korean presidential spokesman Lee Dong-kwan said that President Lee Myung-bak and top officials received an intelligence briefing on Kim’s health. The spokesman said in a statement that according to the briefing Kim was “not seen to be in a serious condition.”

South Korea’s National Intelligence Service reported to a parliamentary committee that it obtained intelligence reports showing Kim recently had surgery for an unspecified circulatory problem, and his condition had much improved, an agency official said.

Related story: Speculation grows over Kim Jong-il’s health

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity citing office policy, did not elaborate.

South Korea’s Yonhap news agency, citing lawmakers briefed by the spy agency, reported that the 66-year-old Kim suffered a cerebral hemorrhage, but he remains conscious and “is able to control the situation.”

The NIS also reported to lawmakers that Kim is in a “recoverable and manageable condition,” and that the North is not in a “power vacuum,” Yonhap said.

NIS officials said they could not confirm the Yonhap report.

Earlier in the day, North Korean officials denied that Kim may be ill or that there was anything unusual about his absence from the parade.

“There are no problems,” Kim Yong Nam, Pyongyang’s No. 2 leader and ceremonial head of state, told Japan’s Kyodo News agency, referring to Kim Jong Il’s absence.

Song Il Ho, a senior diplomat, said reports of Kim’s illness are “worthless” and a “conspiracy plot,” adding Western media “have reported falsehoods before,” according to Kyodo’s dispatch from Pyongyang.

It was not the first time North Korea had 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.

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