Donald Trump wishes Kim Jong-un well amid reports on North Korean leader’s health

US President Donald Trump wished North Korea’s Kim Jong-un well on Tuesday, amid reports that the leader was gravely ill after a cardiovascular procedure.

“If he is in the kind of condition that the reports say … that would be very serious condition,” Trump told a White House news conference, although he also said that the reports had not been confirmed, and he did not put much credence in them.

“I just hope he’s doing fine. I’ve had a very good relationship with Kim Jong-un. And I’d like to see him do well. We’ll see how he does. We don’t know if the reports are true.”

Daily NK, a Seoul-based speciality website, reported late on Monday that Kim, who is believed to be about 36, was recovering after undergoing a cardiovascular procedure on April 12. It cited one unnamed source in North Korea.

Two South Korean government officials rejected a subsequent CNN report citing an unnamed US official saying that the United States was “monitoring intelligence” that Kim was in grave danger after surgery.

South Korea’s presidential Blue House said there were no unusual signs from North Korea, while Trump said “when CNN comes out with a report, I don’t place too much credence in it”.

Earlier Trump’s national security adviser, Robert O’Brien, told Fox News the White House was monitoring the reports “very closely”.

Bloomberg News quoted an unnamed US official as saying the White House was told that Kim had taken a turn for the worse after the surgery.

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However, authoritative US sources familiar with US intelligence questioned the report that Kim was in grave danger.

A Korea specialist working for the US government said: “Any credible direct reporting having to do with Kim would be highly compartmented intelligence and unlikely to leak to the media.”

Kim is a third-generation hereditary leader who rules North Korea with an iron fist, coming to power after his father Kim Jong-il died in 2011 from a heart attack. He is the sole commander of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal, which Trump has tried unsuccessfully to persuade him to give up.

Reporting from inside North Korea is notoriously difficult, especially on matters concerning its leadership, given tight controls on information. There have been past false reports regarding its leaders, but the fact Kim has no clear successor means any instability could present a major international risk.

In recent years, Kim has launched a diplomatic offensive to promote himself as a world leader, holding three meetings with Trump, four with South Korean President Moon Jae-in and five with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

China is North Korea’s only major ally. Speaking to Reuters, an official at the Chinese Communist Party’s International Liaison Department expressed the belief that Kim was not critically ill.

Speculation about Kim’s health first arose due to his absence from the anniversary of the birthday of North Korea’s founding father and Kim’s grandfather, Kim Il-sung, on April 15.

North Korea’s official KCNA news agency gave no indication of his whereabouts in routine dispatches on Tuesday, but said he had sent birthday gifts to prominent citizens.

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Kim has sought to have international sanctions against his country eased, but has refused to give up his nuclear weapons. Trump has described Kim as a friend, but the unprecedented engagement by a US president with a North Korean leader has failed to slow Kim’s nuclear weapons and missile programmes, which pose a threat to the United States.

Joseph Yun, a former US envoy to North Korea under President Barack Obama and Trump, who has since worked as a CNN analyst, told Reuters he believes “something really is quite amiss, quite awry right now in North Korea”.

“It’s worrisome. If he’s seriously ill and he dies, there is no succession plan,” he said. “You could see a huge power struggle, people jockeying for position. Their lives would depend on it.”

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Yun said for all its secrecy, North Korea in recent years had been quick to respond to significant foreign news reports and it is noteworthy that it has stayed silent so far.

As for Kim’s relationship with Trump and faltering efforts to get North Korea to denuclearise, Yun said, “That’s pretty much put in doubt, not that it’s been going anywhere anyway.”

With no details known about his young children, analysts said Kim’s sister and loyalists could form a regency until a successor is old enough to take over.