Seoul denies Pyongyang's claim of assassination attempt

(ATTN: UPDATES with ministry spokesman quote, detail)
By Kim Hyun
SEOUL, Dec. 19 (Yonhap) -- South Korea on Friday denied North Korea's claim that
Seoul hired an agent to assassinate its leader Kim Jong-il, a rare announcement
from the communist country that depicts him as holding absolute power.
North Korea's domestic intelligence agency, the Ministry of Public Security, said
Thursday that it has arrested a North Korean national "scheming to carry out a
terror mission given by the (South's) puppet intelligence agency to harm our
leadership."
It is very rare for Pyongyang to publicize a terror attempt against its
leadership and identify Seoul as the culprit.
South Korean officials denied the accusation.
"It has nothing to do with our agency," an official of the National Intelligence
Service, which was referred to in the North's announcement, said over the
telephone on condition of anonymity.
Seoul's Unification Ministry, which handles inter-Korean affairs, said it is
unprecedented that the North's Ministry of Public Security steps out to publicly
accuse Seoul of a terrorist attempt.
"It hasn't done so (before), not that I remember," the ministry spokesman, Kim
Ho-nyoun, said.
In September 2007, the North announced its arrest of a foreign spy but did not
specify the nationality, Kim said.
"But I am not in a position to comment (on the authenticity of the terror
attempt) and I don't know about it," he said.
In a statement carried by the North's state media, Pyongyang said the agent was
"won over" by a Seoul intelligence official in the border region to collect
information on leaders' activities. He later received a voice tracking device and
even poison for his missions, it said.
The statement did not specifically name Kim Jong-il as the target, but
"leadership" in Pyongyang generally refers to him and his top aides.
"It shows (the South Korean government), mad for the confrontation with us, is
recklessly reaching out to the unforgivable villainous scheme to harm our
leadership on a dare," the statement said.
Pyongyang also claimed it has recently arrested spies collecting soil, water,
leaves and dirt to detect its nuclear activity.
Experts note that Pyongyang's announcement is highly unusual as the secretive
regime considers its leadership as a bastion of absolute authority and normally
would try to hide any assassination attempt against its leader. Pyongyang may be
risking a hint that Kim can be challenged so as to deliver a grave warning toward
Seoul, they said.
"Any attempt against the leadership is such a sensitive issue that Pyonyang
wouldn't dare talk about it publicly," Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korea professor at
Seoul's Dongguk University, said. "It's an absolute power. The fact that North
Korea did so means that it is taking the incident very seriously. We don't know
what kind of attempt it was and whether the South Korean intelligence agency was
behind it, but Pyongyang sounds tough toward Seoul," he said.
South Korea had convicted a woman in August, accusing her of spying for North
Korea. Won Jeong-hwa, who reportedly came to South Korea disguised as a defector,
was arrested in August and sentenced to five years in jail in October on charges
of collecting South Korean military secrets for Pyongyang and trying to
assassinate high-level North Korean defectors in Seoul.
North Korea vehemently denied the report and accused the South of fabricating the
incident to incite a communist scare.
The North has warned it may further curtail inter-Korean exchanges should Seoul
remain tough. South Korean President Lee Myung-bak has adopted a tougher policy
toward the North than his liberal predecessors, demanding concrete
denuclearization by Pyongyang and more reciprocity for Seoul's aid.
North Korea evicted hundreds of South Koreans at the Kaesong complex and cut
border traffic as of Dec. 1, following months of strained relations. It also
suspended South Korean tours to its mountain resort.
hkim@yna.co.kr
(END)