North Korea may have hit a snag in its move to annoint leader Kim Jong-il’s youngest son as successor, being forced to delay a key party conference, a government source in Seoul was quoted as saying yesterday.
The totalitarian state has apparently put off its biggest political gathering for 30 years due to take place sometime in the first half of this month to elect the “highest leading body” of the Workers’ Party of Korea.
“There is a possibility that the issues of publicly anointing Kim Jong-un as the heir and appointing his patrons to key positions might have not yet been sorted out,” the source was quoted as saying by Yonhap news agency.
The source also said the South Korean government had detected signs that some party delegates who had gathered in Pyongyang for the party meeting were packing up and returning home. He noted that former US president Jimmy Carter had said that Kim Jong-il had denied in talks with China that he would name his youngest son as his heir, as believed by many analysts.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) said that during a recent meeting, Kim Jong-il had dismissed the prospective promotion of the son as “a false rumor from the West,” Carter said.
“This denial might be because the North has not yet reached a consensus over the expected make-up of the new leadership and the son’s official debut,” the source in Seoul said.
The party conference will be closely watched for leadership and policy changes and above all for signs that Kim Jong-il, 68, is preparing the ground for a power transfer to Kim Jong-un, who is in his late 20s.
South Korean Minister of Unification Hyun In-taek said on Wednesday the delay may be due to floods or various other reasons.
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