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North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has appeared in public for the first time in nearly three weeks, according to state media, following speculation that he had been seriously ill after heart surgery.
State news agency KCNA launched Photographs allegedly showing Kim opening a fertilizer plant in Sunchon, north of the capital Pyongyang.
KCNA said Kim, accompanied by other top officials, including his influential younger sister Kim Yo-jong, cut a ribbon at a ceremony on Friday.
What appeared to be thousands of people attended the event, many of them wearing face masks, threw balloons and “broke into screams of” Hooray! “For the Supreme Leader,” the agency said.
The images showed Kim smiling and talking to assistants, as well as touring the plant. The authenticity of the photos, published on the official newspaper Rodong Sinmun’s website, could not be immediately verified.
Donald Trump, who last week suggested that the mystery surrounding Kim’s absence would be solved “soon,” declined to comment on the KCNA report. “We will have something to say about it at the appropriate time,” he told reporters at the White House.
The North Korean leader was last seen in public on April 11 when he chaired a meeting of the Workers’ Party politburo. State media published a single photograph of Kim for more than two weeks after that date, but published reports of his daily routine, including diplomatic messages sent to other world leaders.
Speculation about his whereabouts accelerated after missing the April 15 commemoration of his grandfather’s birthday, and North Korean founder Kim Il-sung, who is the most important event on the country’s political calendar. It was the first time that young Kim had missed the event since he became leader.
A day earlier, he had not been present at the launch of several short-range missiles, despite personally supervising similar launches in the past.
Rumors that Kim, who succeeded his father Kim Jong-il in late 2011, began to feel bad about a report from South Korea that he had undergone a “cardiovascular procedure” at Hyangsan Hospital near Pyongyang. on April 12 and was recovering in a nearby villa. Mount Myohyang
Daily NK, a Seoul-based website with secret contacts in the north, claimed that Kim’s health had deteriorated since last August due to smoking, obesity and overwork. That report was followed by claims by an unidentified US official, quoted by CNN, that Kim was “in grave danger.”
Days later, 38 North, a Washington-based North Korean monitoring project, said it had analyzed satellite images it believed showed the Kim train parked at Wonsan, a resort on the east coast where the leader has a home. highly guarded vacation.
But South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s office said it detected no unusual signs in North Korea or any emergency reaction from his ruling party, the army and the cabinet. Seoul said it believed Kim was still handling state affairs but was in an unspecified location outside of Pyongyang.
Defense officials in the United States said there was no evidence that Kim had lost control of the country’s armed forces.
The North Korean media did not offer an explanation for Kim’s absence in Saturday’s report.
Last week, South Korea’s unification minister Kim Yeon-chul, who oversees the engagement with Pyongyang, said Kim may have been taking precautions against the coronavirus outbreak.
North Korea goes on to claim that it has not recorded a single Covid-19 case, despite sharing a border with China, where the outbreak is believed to have started.
Harry Kazianis, senior director of Korean studies at the Washington Center of National Interest Study Center, said the theory of the coronavirus was plausible.
“The most likely explanation for Kim’s absence is with North Korea stating that the coronavirus pandemic is an existential threat … most likely he was taking steps to ensure his health or that the virus has personally affected him in some way. way, “Kazianis said after KCNA released the report.
It is not the first time that Kim’s failure to appear in public has sparked speculation about her health.
In 2014, he was out of sight for almost six weeks before reappearing with a cane. Days later, the South Korean spy agency said he had undergone surgery to remove a cyst from his ankle.
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