MOSCOW, July 13 (RIA Novosti) - Media reports that North Korean leader Kim Jong-il is seriously ill and will soon cede power to his son should be treated with caution, a Russian expert on North Korea said Monday.
South Korea's YTN said on Monday that Kim has pancreatic cancer and looked gaunt when the country's Central Television broadcast a ceremony in Pyongyang marking the death of his father, Kim Il-sung.
"I would not jump to any conclusions. We have heard similar reports many times in the past. I think they should be treated with caution," Alexander Vorontsov, head of the Korea and Mongolia department at the Institute for Oriental Studies, said in an exclusive interview with RIA Novosti.
"Despite rare appearances, the North Korean leader is moving around the country more frequently this year than last year. He is in constant contact with people," the analyst said.
"I believe, both South Korean and Japanese media are simply looking for a sensation. They have buried Kim Jong-il many times, but he has 'risen from the dead' time and time again."
The Russian expert also downplayed rumors about mass exodus of North Koreans from the country across the border with China.
A prominent North Korean defector and one of the leaders of the Committee for the Democratization of North Korea, earlier told Japanese media that about 300,000 soldiers had been deployed along the border with China to prevent a mass exodus of North Koreans to China due to a severe food shortage in the impoverished communist country.
"The information about mass exodus is also largely exaggerated. There is such a phenomenon as economic migration. Businessmen frequently cross the border back and forth, but someone decided to count them as defectors or refugees," Vorontsov said.
"Most people on the border between North Korea and China simply conduct legitimate business, and it would be definitely an exaggeration to claim that the flow of migrants has greatly increased," he said.
"The same refers to the number of troops deployed at the border - it is really hard to count them because the regime is so reclusive. Maybe there were some troop movements recently, but not on a large scale," Vorontsov said.
According to a UN report on North Korea last year, at least 9 million people, or about one third of the population, desperately need of food aid.
Despite being in dire economic straits, the North has withdrawn from six-nation nuclear talks, also involving the United States, Russia, China, Japan, and South Korea, that could have resulted in substantial economic and food aid to the communist nation.
