The Strait Times September 12, 2008
S. Korea on alert
Reports of North Korean leader's stroke and possible impact prompt work on military plan
SEOUL: South Korea is on alert for possible political change in its nuclear-armed neighbour following the disclosure that North Korean leader Kim Jong Il suffered a stroke last month.
South Korean Defence Minister Lee Sang Hee, who told Parliament that MrKim had undergone surgery and was recovering, said a military plan was being drawn up for any contingency. Reports said Mr Kim could have partial paralysis on the left side of his body.
South Korean President Lee Myung Bak convened an emergency meeting on Wednesday night and told security ministers and aides that 'thorough preparations should be made to minimise confusion over changes in North Korea's political circumstances'.
South Korea is still technically at war with its hardline communist neighbour. The two forces face off across a heavily fortified border, with United States troops backing up the South.
Asked if Seoul should revive a joint US-South Korean military contingency plan to prepare for sudden political change in the North, the Defence Minister said relevant agencies were in talks to develop such a plan.
'We are developing a plan in preparation for a (possible) limited provocation or a full-scale war,' he said.
Newspapers Dong-A Ilbo and JoongAng Ilbo quoted unnamed government officials as saying that Mr Kim is not suffering from slurred speech - a disability often associated with a stroke. He is also reportedly able to stand if assisted.
Foreign doctors, possibly from China and France, performed the operation after Mr Kim collapsed around Aug 15.
The 66-year-old, a former smoker and heavy drinker, is known to suffer from diabetes and heart problems.
'If he had surgery, it means it's serious,' said Professor Kim Jong Sung, a neurology professor at Seoul's Asan Medical Centre.
News that the North Korean leader had suffered a stroke 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.
Mr Lee Chul Woo, secretary of Parliament's intelligence committee, said a collective leadership was more likely should there be a sudden transition, but if MrKim's condition improved, the succession would be determined later.
If the North's powerful military secured more power in a post-Kim era, 'it will change towards a tougher line', he said yesterday.
'If technocrats in the administration get more power, it will then move towards inter-Korean reconciliation.'
Mr Kim's illness comes amid a deadlock in a six-nation nuclear disarmament deal and fears the North intends to restart its atomic weapons programme.
'My first inclination is that it will go to a hunker-down mode and not pursue a breakthrough or a breakdown,' said MrPeter Beck, an expert in Korean affairs at American University in Washington.
China, host of the six-way talks aimed at persuading Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear weapons, said yesterday that it had received no word from its ally on MrKim's health.
The Defence Minister, quoted by lawmaker Yoo Seong Min, said no unusual troop movements had been detected in the North, and South Korea's military was maintaining its customary alert level.
But in a move that could heighten tension, North Korea is nearing the completion of a second test site and launch pad for intercontinental ballistic missiles that could hit all of South Korea and most of Japan, CNN reported.
North Korea used the east coast site to launch a Taepodong missile in 1998 over Japan. A Taepodong-2 missile was launched from Musudan-ri in 2006, but it failed.
Mr John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a research group that specialises in security issues, said the new site was much larger, more elaborate and had better transportation connections.
'It is set up to do a launch three or four times a year, rather than every decade,' he said.
The Defence Minister yesterday confirmed the reports of the second launch site but did not give further details.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS, ASSOCIATED PRESS
© Copyright 2008, Strait Times
