The grandson of deceased North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il supports a
unified Korea, the teen said in an interview with former United Nations
under-secretary general Elisabeth Rehn, which aired on a Finnish
television station.
Kim Han-sol, a 17-year-old who is attending an international
university in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina, tells Rehn, in nearly
unaccented English, that he was born in North Korea, but moved to Macau,
China,
when he was very young and that he never met his grandfather,
even though he wanted to.
“That was actually one thing that I wanted to do before he passed away. I was really curious myself,” Han-sol says.
Han-sol says he hasn’t met his uncle, current North Korean leader Kim
Jong-un, either. Han-sol is the son of Kim Jong-nam, Kim Jong-il’s
eldest son, who fell out of favour with his father, leading the former
dictator to appoint his youngest son as the next leader instead.
Han-sol says both his mother and his father taught him to think for
himself and to be thankful for what he has in life. His upbringing has
allowed him to make South Korean friends, he says.
“We shared stories from back home and realized how similar we are,”
he says. “Same language, same culture. It’s just political issues that
divide the nation in half and now, today, I have really close friends
and we travel together, and it’s such a wonderful feeling.”
Han-sol says he dreams of going back to North Korea after school to make a difference and to make life easier for people there.
