'Kim Jong Un is alive, no suspicious movements detected'

South Korea has said that Kim Jong-un, is “alive and well”, downplaying rumours that that the North Korean leader was seriously ill after undergoing heart surgery.

“Our government position is firm,” Moon Chung-in, a special adviser on national security to the South Korean president, Moon Jae-in, said in an interview with CNN on Sunday. “Kim Jong-un is alive and well.”

The adviser said that Mr Kim had been staying in Wonsan - a resort town on the country’s east coast - since April 13th, adding: “No suspicious movements have so far been detected.”

Conjecture about Mr Kim’s health has grown since his conspicuous absence from the April 15th celebrations for the birthday of his grandfather Kim Il-sung, the North’s founder - the most important day in the country’s political calendar.

Mr Kim has not made a public appearance since presiding over a Korea Workers’ party politburo meeting on April 11th. His absence has unleashed a series of unconfirmed media reports over his condition, but officials in Seoul and Beijing have insisted that there is nothing to suggest Mr Kim is unwell.As the absolute leader of country with a nuclear weapons programme, Mr Kim’s health is matter of intense interest both regionally and globally.

If something were to happen to Mr Kim, some experts have said it could lead to instability in North Korea.

“We have nothing to confirm and no special movement has been detected inside North Korea as of now,” the South’s presidential office said in a statement last week. The office that there had been no emergency readiness order issued by the North’s military or the ruling Workers’ Party that likely would have been made if Mr Kim were truly in a bad condition.