N Korean leader’s nephew tells secrets

SEOUL - Agence France-Presse

This captured image posted on Facebook shows Kim Han-sol with his girlfriend. Hürriyet photo

Late North Korean leader Kim Jong-il’s teenage grandson has labeled his uncle, North Korea’s new leader Kim Jong-un, a “dictator” in an interview that offers a rare glimpse into the world’s most secretive ruling dynasty.

During the interview, Kim Han-sol spoke of his desire to “make things better” in North Korea.
Born in Pyongyang in 1995, Kim described a lonely childhood, spent mostly in the home of his mother’s family, isolated from the grandfather he never actually met and who died in last year.

“I always wanted to meet him, I wanted to know what kind of person he is,” Kim said in the interview, which aired on Finnish television and was posted on YouTube. “I really didn’t know if he knew that I existed,” he said. Kim, now 17, is the son of Kim Jong-il’s eldest son Kim Jong-nam, who fell out of favor with his father following a botched attempt in 2001 to secretly enter Japan using a fake passport. The family has since lived in virtual exile, mainly in the Chinese territory of Macau.

“I don’t really know why he became a dictator,” Kim said of Kim Jung-un. “When I was in North Korea, I wasn’t really aware of what was going on there,” Kim said. “I’ve always dreamed that one day I would go back and make things better for the people there,” he added.

N Korea warns of strike

Interview came as North Korea threatened yesterday to carry out a “merciless military strike” on South Korea. The Korean People’s Army vowed to initiate the strike if a group of North Korean defectors now living in the South went ahead with plans to scatter propaganda leaflets on Oct. 22 from balloons floated over the border. The threat came after South Korean President Lee Myung-bak made a surprise visit to an island that was shelled by Pyongyang two years ago.