Seoul - North Korea's latest nuclear weapons test and
missile launches are linked with efforts by ailing Pyongyang leader
Kim Jong Il to secure the succession of one of his sons to power, a
senior South Korean official said Wednesday.
Kim Jong Il was determined to ensure a 'hereditary transfer of
power,' South Korean Defence Minister Lee Sang Hee was quoted as
saying by the official Yonhap news agency.
By increasing global tension, including the May 25 nuclear weapons
test, Kim was creating conditions to hand over power to his youngest
son, Kim Jong Un, Lee wrote in remarks directed at South Korea's
troops.
'Bent on his effort to engineer a hereditary power succession, Kim
Jong Il is pushing ahead with nuclear development, missile launches
and moves to raise tension,' said Lee, who described Pyongyang's
Stalinist regime as an 'immoral, irresponsible and inhumane group,'
which put its own survival above the lives of the North Korean
people.
South Korea should not expect Pyongyang to refrain from provoking
an armed conflict, he added.
Pyongyang notched up tension in the region since April, when it
test-fired a long-range ballistic missile, followed by May's nuclear
test which coincided with tests of several short-range missiles.
On Tuesday, Russia's Interfax news agency, quoting diplomat
sources in Moscow, reported that North Korea was preparing for yet
another missile test.
At the United Nations Security Council in New York, debate on
further sanctions against North Korea is ongoing. 'We are engaged in
intense and productive negotiations, we are making progress, but we
are not done yet,' US Ambassador Susan Rice said Tuesday.
South Korean media, quoting intelligence sources, reported last
week, that Kim Jong Il, 67, named his youngest son, who is believed
to be around 26, his successor.
Kim Jong Il, who is believed to have suffered a stroke last
summer, was said to have informed government organizations and North
Korea's missions abroad of his plans.
While there has been no official confirmation from Pyongyang, Kim
Jong Nam, the eldest son of the North Korean leader, told Japan's
Nippon TV last week that he believed Jong Un was to succeed his
father.
The two Koreas are set to meet Thursday amid the growing tension
to discuss the future of a joint industrial park located at the North
Korean border town Kaesong.
In mid-May, Pyongyang nixed all existing agreements regarding the
park, following earlier demands for higher wages and an early end of
preferable land usage terms for the South Korean companies producing
goods at Kaesong.
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