The news, leaked by anonymous sources, was not denied by official channels. The two are said to have lived together since the mid-80s despite the jealousy of the dictator's now dead wife.
Pyongyang (AsiaNews/CS) The North Korean "dear leader", Kim Jong-il, yesterday married his ex-secretary, Kim-Ok (in the photo) after two years or some say since the mid-eighties of living together. This was revealed by anonymous sources close to the regime, who described Ok as the "Communist first lady" replacing Ko Yung-hi, who died two years ago of cancer.
Asked about the matter, North Korean official sources were in two minds: a high-ranking government representative said "he had never heard anything about all this", while sources of the secret services in Cheong Wa Dae neither confirmed nor denied the news.
Some people say 42-year-old Kim Ok studied to be a pianist at Pyongyang's national Conservatory, until she was noticed by Kim in the early 80s and taken on as his personal secretary. She accompanied the dictator on his visits to the country's military bases and to meetings with foreign dignitaries, always under the pseudonym of Kim Suk-on.
When Cho Myong-nok, North Korea's first vice chairman of national defense, visited Washington as a "special envoy of Kim" in October 2000, Kim Sun-ok was among the delegation members.
Many other sources confirm the closeness between the leader and his secretary: Kenji Fujimoto, personal cook of the "dear leader", managed to return to Japan two years ago and in his memoirs, he wrote that a personal secretary "was in the confidence of the head of state".
North Korean exiles tell a slightly different story: Kim and his secretary have lived together since the mid-eighties despite the jealousy of the dictator's wife. Party officials, in fact, called her "comrade secretary" but "Queen Min" behind her back, after the last empress of the Chosun dynasty.