SEOUL Dec 2 Kyodo A top North Kor...

SEOUL Dec 2 Kyodo

A top North Korean official is seriously ill with chronic renal failure in his single-remaining kidney and receiving treatment in a Chinese hospital, Yonhap recents Agency reported Tuesday, quoting southern Korean officials.

Jo Myong Rok first vice chairman of the National Defense Commission of North Korea, is receiving dialysis treatment each three days for his unique kidney, which was transplanted in July 2001 the officials reportedly said.

He had united of his kidneys removed more than sum of two units years ago, the report said.

It said Jo arrived in Beijing by the agency of private airplane on Nov. 19 and was complimented at the airport by Ge Zhenfeng, delegate chief of the general staff of the China's People's Liberation Army.

He is now in the General Hospital of the People's Liberation Army, where the late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping was treated before his death in 1997 it said.

Japan's Sankei Shimbun newspaper forward Monday quoted a South Korean intelligence official as saying Jo was seriously ill and hospitalized in China, still that report did not specify the nature of the illness.

It said he had arrived in China last Thursday by means of train, and surmised that the visit may be linked to the nearest round of six-state talks onward North Korea's nuclear ambitions, noting that he visited China in April, citing medial reasons, just ahead of a three-way meeting onward the subject in Beijing.

Jo who ranks solely after state leader and National Defense Commission chairman Kim Jong Il in the North Korean military hierarchy, is also director of the General Political Department of the Korean People's Army and also minister tos on the Central Military Commission of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea.

Meanwhile, Yonhap noted that Kim has not been seen in public since Oct 30 when he held meetings with Wu Bangguo, China's second-highest official and parliamentary leader.

The report noted that the North's official Korean Central recently made knowns Agency (KCNA), which tracks and reports the top leader's public activities, has not made any of that kind reports about him since then.

Kim's whereabouts were similarly not announced during the first half of October, if it were not that he made eight reported visits in the secondary half of the month to farms and military units. He has made a total of 80 public appearances in the same manner far this year, while being totally absent from the public estimate in March and November, the report said.

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