The South Korean government on Tuesday said it was looking into US media reports that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was in a fragile condition after surgery.
Officials from South Korea’s Unification Ministry and National Intelligence Service said they could not immediately confirm the report.
CNN cited an anonymous US official who said Mr Kim was in “grave danger” after an unspecified surgery.
The Unification Ministry, which deals with inter-Korean affairs, said it could not confirm another report by Daily NK, which cited anonymous sources to report Mr Kim was recovering from heart surgery in the capital Pyongyang and that his condition was improving.
Speculation about Mr Kim’s health was raised after he missed a celebration honouring his late grandfather and state founder Kim Il Sung on April 15.
He had been seen four days before that at a government meeting.
South Korea’s presidential office said in a statement no suspicious activity had been detected in North Korea that may have given backing to the reports.
The absence of Mr Kim’s father and predecessor as the country’s leaders, Kim Jong Il, absence from a parade celebrating North Korea’s 60th anniversary in 2008 was followed by rumours that he was in poor health.
It was later revealed he had a stroke, after which his health declined further until his death in 2011.
![North Korea Kim](http://image.assets.pressassociation.io/v2/image/production/888a9fdc3c3b2d57b29b485d246e2dddY29udGVudHNlYXJjaCwxNTg3NTI0MTA2/2.53480802.jpg?w=640)
Credible information about North Korea and especially its leadership is difficult to obtain and even intelligence agencies have been wrong about its inner workings in the past.
CNN quoted Bruce Klingner, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation and former CIA deputy division chief for North Korea, as saying rumours had circulated recently about Mr Kim’s health.
“There have been a number of recent rumours about Kim’s health (smoking, heart, and brain),” the network quoted Mr Klingner as saying.
“If Kim is hospitalised, it would explain why he wasn’t present on the important April 15th celebrations.
“But, over the years, there have been a number of false health rumours about Kim Jong-un, or his father. We’ll have to wait and see.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here