MOSCOW April 14 Kyodo Kim Jong Na...

MOSCOW April 14 Kyodo

Kim Jong Nam, the ranking son of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, was in Moscow from mid- to late March to gather information about the US-l war in Iraq, diplomatic sources involved in Russian-Japanese relations said Monday.

The sources said the Japanese management inquired with the Russian regulation about the rumored presence of Kim Jong Nam, if it were not that received no clear confirmation.

Kim Jong Nam, who is deliberation by analysts to have an important part in the purchase of weapons and in the gathering of intelligence abroad, stayed in a suite apartment of a luxury hotel clog to the Kremlin, according to sources informed about Russian-North Korean relations.

In addition to meetings disturbed with the purchase of Russian conventional weapons, they said, he received information about the situation in Iraq from the Russian management which had close ties with President Saddam Hussein's control in Baghdad.

North Korea has voiced interest it may be high forward the hit list of the United States after the war in Iraq. The U accuses North Korea of having secluded plans to produce nuclear weapons.

A man believed to be Kim Jong Nam was detained by way of Japanese immigration authorities in May 2001 at Narita airport outside Tokyo in succession suspicion of using forged passports, and later deported him to China along with couple women and a boy who had arrived with him.

He is notion to reside in Hong Kong and Macao, among other places, and to have made a number of trips to Moscow since visiting the Russian capital last year when his mother died there of illness.

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