S.Korea on alert for changes in North

• IBTimes RSS
• Print
• E-Mail
• digg
• Del.icio.us

Kim, 66, has led communist North Korea for 14 years, under which the reclusive country has seen it anaemic economy shrink, its ballistic missile arsenal swell and U.N. sanctions imposed due to its nuclear programme and first atomic test two years ago.

"We should have thorough and precise readiness so we can respond to any situation without confusion," President Lee Myung-bak was quoted as saying in a statement from the spokesman of the presidential Blue House. The meeting was late on Wednesday.

"There was a report that Chairman Kim is recovering from a stroke in the brain circulatory system and does not appear to be in a serious condition," a Blue House spokesman said.

U.S. and South Korean intelligence officials said earlier that Kim had suffered a stroke. The South's intelligence said Kim was recovering well, while North Korean officials reportedly said there was nothing wrong with their leader.

The statement said the South had spotted no unusual troop movements in the North, but Lee had asked his government to step up readiness plans for possible contingencies.

The mystery surrounding Kim also leaves a frightening question mark for South Korea, for which a worst-case scenario would be the collapse of the North, leaving it facing social chaos that could wreck Asia's fourth-largest economy.

"The latest incident proves that this scenario (of unification) is no longer a distant prospect but an unavoidable reality we may have to face right now," South Korea's largest newspaper, Chosun Ilbo, said in an editorial.

Kim's death would create huge uncertainty over leadership in a country whose deep distrust of the outside world is backed by a 1.2 million-strong army and possibly atomic weapons.

The North has threatened to turn the capitalist South to dust and considers Japan and the United States mortal enemies.

• 1
• 2