`NK leader says 2004 explosion was assassination attempt`

Hyundai Group Chairwoman Hyun Jeong-eun, who met North Korean leader Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang in 2007, is known to have said Kim believes the 2004 train station explosion in the North Korean town of Ryongchon was an attempt to assassinate him.

According to a diplomatic report released recently by WikiLeaks, Hyun told U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Kathleen Stephens in 2009, “Kim believed that the explosion at Ryongchon Station was a failed attempt to assassinate him, and the (North Korean) People’s Army became his most trusted group after the incident.”

Hyun was quoted as saying, "After the time when his train was to pass Ryongchon Station was revealed through mobile phones, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il believed that the explosion occurred when his train almost reached the station, and after the incident, the introduction of mobile phones in the North was markedly delayed."

According to the report, the chairman said, "Kim Jong Il fears assassination and a coup the most. He was not an irrational person in the past, but I feel he has changed recently in certain aspects.”

“Denuclearization and Opening 3000,” South Korean President Lee Myung-bak’s North Korea policy framework, aims at developing the North`s economy to the level at which North Koreans can voluntarily begin a democratization movement.

A diplomatic report prepared Jan. 7, 2008 by the U.S. Embassy in Seoul said then president-elect Lee held talks Jan. 4 that year with a delegation of former U.S. government officials, including former U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry and former U.S. nuclear negotiator Robert Gallucci.

Lee said, “If North Korea completely dismantles its nuclear weapons and gets it verified, South Korea will make efforts to increase the North’s annual per capita GDP to 3,000 U.S. dollars,” adding, “The figure of 3,000 dollars is very important because only when GDP reaches that level can North Koreans come to realize human rights and political freedom.”

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