South Korea has enough intelligence to confidently say that there are no unusual developments in rival North Korea.
South Korea's Government has dismissed rumours that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is in a fragile condition, as speculation about his health intensifies amid the North's silence on his whereabouts.Rumours are rife that he is in ill health, which could impact global efforts to denuclearise Satellite imagery has showed a train believed to belong to him at one of his compounds on the east coast Unification Minister Kim Yeon-chul told a closed-door forum in Seoul that South Korea has"enough intelligence to confidently say that there are no unusual developments" in rival North Korea that would back up speculation about Mr Kim's health, his ministry said on Monday [local time].
The minister would not reveal at Sunday's forum what specific intelligence led to that conclusion, but he stressed that it was reached after a thorough analysis. His comments are a reiteration of earlier South Korean statements that Kim Jong-un appeared to be handling state affairs normally and that no unusual activities had been detected in North Korea. Those comments, however, failed to dispel the rumours about Kim, partly because past outside intelligence reports on developments in North Korea have sometimes turned out to be wrong.There are concerns, particularly in Seoul and Washington, about what would happen to North Korea and its nuclear program if anything actually happened to Kim. For South Korea and the US, Kim's absence would mean the departure of a man they've dealt with over the past two years to try to achieve North Korea's denuclearisation, though talks have stalled in recent months.
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