By Kim Sue-young
Staff Reporter

For the United States, which has described North Korea as an ``axis of evil,'' the alleged bad health of Kim Jong-il, the dictator who has fattened himself but starved his people, may be good news. However, Washington ironically does not want to lose the North Korean leader because of a possible power gap regarding the control of nuclear weapons, the New York Times reported Sunday.

``There was a surprising ambivalence in official Washington about the news ― more than a whiff of reluctance, in fact, to lose Mr. Kim at the helm just now,'' the report said. ``This was true especially among intelligence officials, who wake up every day worried about what will happen when states implode, and whether there will be a free-for-all for their weapons.''

The head of the Stalinist state made no public appearance in a parade last week to mark the 60th anniversary of the nation's founding, triggering speculation over his health.

Some rumors even have it that Kim died in March but many media outlets reported that he had suffered a stroke and is now recovering.

The Americans' biggest fear about the secretive state is a collapse of the state, in which a starving, broken nation simply implodes, sending everyone on a mad scramble for the country's arsenal, the newspaper said.

Britain's weekly magazine Newsweek cast a similar view in an article, titled ``The Plan Post-Kim: No Plan.''

Noting that the question of what would happen if the North Korean leader suddenly didn't control weapons of mass destruction grew urgent, the magazine said Washington could only hope North Korea wasn't on the verge of a succession crisis.

It added what scares South Koreans is the North's desperately poor civilian population, claiming Seoul's economy would be devastated by the overwhelming poverty of the North if the Demilitarized Zone were to disappear the way the Berlin wall did.

Despite those fears, Washington and Seoul have no real contingency plans, it said.

Andrei Lankov, a North Korea expert at Kookmin University in Seoul, was quoted as saying, ``The major players are completely unprepared. The South Koreans don't want to touch it, and the United States takes its lead from the South.''

Pointing out that Chinese firms control much of Pyongyang's natural-resource output, the magazine said that Beijing has vigorously prepared for any emergencies in the North while Seoul and Washington sat idly by.

The magazine concluded the end of the Kim era may not be catastrophic but that doesn't mean it won't get rough.

ksy@koreatimes.co.kr