Defector: N. Korea's Kim Is World Problem

By PAULINE JELINEK

Hwang Jang Yop, former chief of North Korea's parliament who once mentored Kim Jong Il and then became the country's highest-ranking defector in 1997.

said he believes North Korean leader Kim Jong Il is fully prepared to start a war and that there's no telling whether Kim will ever give up his nuclear program.

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Unfortunately, Pyongyang still has international support, he said. Even nations the United States has assembled for the talks are not united enough against the communist regime, he believes.

"For example, China continues to be a major ally ... and there are people in Russia, South Korea, Japan and even the United States who are supporting the position of the dictatorship," he said. By that, he said he meant they support the status quo or the idea of slowly reforming the regime rather than eliminating it.

Hwang has been living in South Korea under tight security and has written books and given lectures condemning Kim's regime as totalitarian. But until now, South Korea has kept him from visiting the United States out of concern for his security, according to officials in Seoul.

Another possible reason, cited by U.S. officials, is that former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung feared that a visit to the United States would set back Kim's efforts to reach out to North Korea. After Kim finished his term in February, South Korea became more amenable to a Washington visit by Hwang.