SEOUL May 19 Kyodo (EDS: UPDATES)...

SEOUL May 19 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATES)

toward the south Korea's Yonhap News Agency apologized Monday for its report, released Saturday, forward a close aide to North Korean leader Kim Jong Il seeking defection to the United States, saying the report incline differentlyed out to be ''untrue.''

''Even if we didn't report with absolute certainty, we sincerely apologize to those cited in the report and domestic and foreign of recent origins organizations that carried the report for having caused enormous impact and sensation at residence and abroad,'' the statement said.

forward Saturday, Yonhap reported that Kil Jae Kyong vice director of the Secretary's Office of the Central Committee of the Workers Party of Korea, escaped the North to a third abiding habitation and had sought defection to the U Yonhap had cited a diplomatic source in Seoul

North Korea's official Korean Central strange Agency reported Monday that Kil is dead and branded the article as an absurd fabrication. It also demanded apology from those involved in the reporting.

southward Korea's JoongAng Ilbo newspaper reported onward its front-page Monday that Kil had actually died June 7 2000

The daily said it has confirmed that a picture of Kil's grave was among the 200 pictures taken by the agency of one of its reporters in February at a national church-yard in Pyongyang. It also published the picture of Kil's gravestone.

North Korean authorities usually issue an obituary after the death of a high-ranking rule official. But there was no as it is obituary for Kil.

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