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NIS: Kim Jong Un recovering from ankle surgery

I don’t know if this is true, but it makes more sense than any other theory I’ve heard in the last month:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is recovering following an operation to remove a cyst from his right ankle, though there is a chance that the condition could recur, lawmakers said Tuesday, citing South Korea’s spy agency.

Kim received the operation between September and October by inviting a foreign doctor into the communist country, according to Lee Cheol-woo of the ruling Saenuri Party and Shin Kyong-min of the main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy.

The two lawmakers made the comments to reporters after a closed-door parliamentary audit of the National Intelligence Service (NIS) in southern Seoul.

The NIS said that there is a chance that the condition could recur due to Kim’s obesity and frequent inspection tours, according to the lawmakers. [Yonhap]

So much for “closed-door.” Anyway, it tells you all you need to know about the greatness of North Korea’s vaunted “free” and “universal” medical care that when the patient really matters, they fly in a foreign doctor. The involvement of a foreign doctor also suggests the possibility of independent verification.

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  1. “The involvement of a foreign doctor also suggests the possibility of independent verification.”

    Are you sure that the doctor made it back out? Or did he “decide” to stay and care for his/her patient?

    You couldn’t pay me enough to cross the border into that country!

  2. “Kim received the operation between September and October by inviting a foreign doctor into the communist country”.

    Whatever happened to Juche?

  3. To be completely fair, the street translation of juche as “self-reliance” is not quite right. Its real thesis is that man can be master of his own destiny only though purity, strength, and independence, and through the guidance of a Great Leader.

    A Great, big, fat, corpulent Leader.

  6. Anyway, it tells you all you need to know about the greatness of North Korea’s vaunted “free” and “universal” medical care that when the patient really matters, they fly in a foreign doctor.

    I don’t doubt that’s the case, but I can think of another likely reason too: a foreign doctor hired in ad hoc was less likely to be complicit in any possible palace intrigue directed against the life of the Young Marshal. Actually operating on KJU must have been memorably tense, especially if general anaesthetic was involved.

  7. Cuban doctors are well-trained, certainly by available-to-North-Korea standards. The Castro regime trains a surplus of medical personnel, and hires them out to other despots, or volunteers them whenever it would be good PR for the Castro regime. (Of course, the media falls for this every time; look up any news story about Cuba and Ebola.) Healing the fat scion of history’s worst clan of human butchers, in exchange for some hard currency, fuel, or God-knows-what illicit goods, would be right up Cuba’s alley.