South Korea’s conciliatory gestures to North Korea following the death of Kim Jong-Il are intended to show it is not hostile towards its neighbour, President Lee Myung-Bak said Thursday. Lee, who is often reviled by Pyongyang as a “traitor”, also expressed hope the communist state would regain stability as soon as possible, according to his office.
South Korea has made a series of conciliatory gestures, sending its sympathies to the North Korean people for the death and scrapping a plan to display Christmas lights near their shared border. The communist North had denounced the lights plan as “psychological warfare” by its capitalist neighbour.
“We have taken such measures basically to show we are not hostile towards North Korea,” Lee told a meeting of political leaders. Meanwhile, South Korea’s spy chief has come under fire for questioning North Korea’s account of leader Kim Jong-Il’s death, as well as failing to learn about his demise before it was officially announced.
The North said Monday that the 69-year-old Kim had died of a heart attack two days previously while on a train during one of his “field guidance” tours, portraying him as a martyr to duty despite the bitter cold. But National Intelligence Service (NIS) Chief Won Sei-Hoon questioned that version of events, telling a closed parliamentary session Tuesday that Kim’s train was spotted stationary at a Pyongyang station at the time of his death.
He said the train had not moved on Friday or Saturday. Opposition legislators and some ruling party MPs called for a shake-up of security and foreign posts, after Pyongyang’s bombshell announcement Monday took Seoul by surprise.
