South Korean and Chinese officials and sources familiar with US intelligence on Tuesday cast doubt on reports that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is gravely ill after a cardiovascular procedure, while the White House said it was closely monitoring the matter.
US President Donald Trump, who held unprecedented summits with Kim in 2018 and 2019 in an attempt to persuade him to give up his nuclear weapons, said the reports had not been confirmed and he did not put much credence in them, but he wished the North Korean leader well.
“If he is in the kind of condition that the reports say … that would be very serious condition,” Trump told a White House news conference.
“I just hope he’s doing fine. I’ve had a very good relationship with Kim Jong Un. And I’d like to see him do well. We’ll see how he does. We don’t know if the reports are true.”
Daily NK, a Seoul-based speciality website, reported late on Monday that Kim, who is believed to be about 36, was recovering after undergoing a cardiovascular procedure on April 12. It cited one unnamed source in North Korea.
Two South Korean government officials rejected a subsequent CNN report citing an unnamed US official saying that the United States was “monitoring intelligence” that Kim was in grave danger after surgery.
South Korea’s presidential Blue House said there were no unusual signs from North Korea, while Trump said “when CNN comes out with a report, I don’t place too much credence in it.”
Earlier Trump’s national security adviser, Robert O’Brien, told Fox News the White House was monitoring the reports “very closely.”
Bloomberg News quoted an unnamed US official as saying the White House was told that Kim had taken a turn for the worse after the surgery.
However, authoritative US sources familiar with US intelligence questioned the report that Kim was in grave danger.
A Korea specialist working for the US government said, “Any credible direct reporting having to do with Kim would be highly compartmented intelligence and unlikely to leak to the media.”
Kim is a third-generation hereditary leader who rules North Korea with an iron fist, coming to power after his father Kim Jong Il died in 2011 from a heart attack. He is the sole commander of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal, which Trump has tried unsuccessfully to persuade him to give up.
Reporting from inside North Korea is notoriously difficult, especially on matters concerning its leadership, given tight controls on information. There have been past false reports regarding its leaders, but the fact Kim has no clear successor means any instability could present a major international risk.
