President Roh: “Kim Jong Il is a Bad Man”

“Kim Jong Il is a bad man.”

The New York Times reported on February 14 that President Roh Moo-hyun described National Defense Committee Chairman Kim Jong Il that way in the summit meeting with the U.S. President George W. Bush held in November last year in Santiago, Chile.

When President Bush said in the meeting, “North Korean leader Kim Jong Il is a person who starves his own people to death,” President Roh responded, “Right. He is a bad man. But we don’t need to talk about that in public.” The newspaper quoted a U.S. government official who attended the summit meeting as saying that.

Cheong Wa Dae neither approved nor denied the report yesterday, saying, “We cannot reveal the two leaders’ remarks concretely.”

Jung-Hun Kim jnghn@donga.com