Kim Jong Un to Play Statesman to Visitors From South

By Sangwon Yoon - Dec 26, 2011 8:48 PM GMT+0700

Kim Jong Un got his first chance to play the role of North Korean statesman as a former first lady from the South and the chairwoman of Hyundai Group visited to pay their condolences over the death of Kim Jong Il.

Lee Hee Ho, the 89-year-old widow of former South Korean President Kim Dae Jung, and Hyundai’s Hyun Jeong Eun led a private group of 18 South Koreans across the Demilitarized Zone to Pyongyang today as the North’s media extended its adulation of Kim Jong Un, believed to be younger than 30 years old. The group made a 10-minute stop at the Kumsusan Memorial Palace, where Kim Jong Il’s body is lying in state, and met his son and successor, said Park Soo Jin, a spokeswoman for the Unification Ministry in Seoul.

The ruling party named Kim head of its central committee just a week after his father’s death on Dec. 17, adding to the official Korean Central News Agency’s recent references to him as “supreme leader of the revolutionary armed forces” and “great successor” to his late father and grandfather, Kim Il Sung.

Meeting with the former first lady may help create an image, both at home and abroad, of Kim Jong Un as a leader who already has a South Korea policy, said Baek Seung Joo, a North Korea specialist at the state-run Korea Institute for Defense Analysis in Seoul.

Paik Hak Soon, director of North Korean studies at the Seongnam, South Korea-based Sejong Institute, said any meeting was unlikely to yield political progress.

“Catastrophic Consequences”

No government officials from Seoul will pay condolences, according to the Unification Ministry, which oversees policy toward North Korea.

Known for making repeated threats against its southern neighbor, North Korea warned yesterday of “unpredictable catastrophic consequences” after the government in Seoul restricted condolences.

South Korea, which prohibits its citizens from traveling to the North except to the jointly run Gaeseong industrial complex, gave special permission for Lee and Hyun.

Private individuals and groups, also banned by South Korean law from praising the North Korean regime, may send condolences via mail or fax.

The delegation is staying at the Baekhwawon State Guest House in Pyongyang, accommodation used previously by Kim Dae Jung and his successor, the late Roh Moo Hyun, the Unification Ministry said.

Kim Praised

Paik said a flurry of official statements hailing the younger Kim over the past week also indicates that he may be given the highest formal roles in the country more quickly than was his father, who waited three years for the titles following the death of Kim Il Sung.

Jang Song Thaek, an ally and brother-in-law of Kim Jong Il, was shown in military uniform for the first time on state television yesterday, Yonhap news reported. Jang’s role within the power structure is widening and this will help him guide and protect the young leader, said Kim Yong Hyun, a professor of North Korea studies at Dongguk University in Seoul.

The group will return home tomorrow, a day before Kim Jong Il’s funeral on Dec. 28. They traveled by land and crossed the border about 8:30 a.m. today near the village of Panmunjom, where a cease-fire that ended fighting in the Korean War was signed in 1953.

To contact the reporter on this story: Sangwon Yoon in Seoul at syoon32@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Peter Hirschberg at phirschberg@bloomberg.net