LEAD: North Korea prepares for Kim's funeral

Dec 27, 2011, 13:17 GMT

Seoul - North Korea prepared for the funeral of its leader Kim Jong Il, scheduled for Wednesday, while observers predicted that hundreds of thousands would be mobilized to bid farewell to the man who ruled the secluded country for 17 years.

State media in the Stalinist country did not release details about the funeral plans.

'It cannot be denied that an atmosphere of mourning has settled over the entire country,' said Paik Hak Soon, a political scientist at the Sejong Institute think tank.

He expected Wednesday's funeral to follow a pattern similar to the ceremonies for Kim's father and North Korea's founder, Kim Il Sung, in July 1994.

At the time, hundreds of thousands of weeping people had lined Pyongyang's streets as Kim Il Sung's coffin was driven by. His preserved body lies at the Kumsusan Memorial Palace, where his son's body has been lying in state since last week in a glass coffin, surrounded by red and white flowers.

Kim Jong Il died December 17 of a heart attack aged 69, state media said. His third and youngest son, Kim Jong Un, was chosen as his successor to lead the impoverished, isolated nuclear power, which has one of the world's largest militaries.

On Tuesday, state news agency KCNA repeated its praise of Kim Jong Un as the 'great successor to the juche revolutionary cause and sagacious leader of our party, state, army and people,' in a reference to its governing principle of self-reliance.

The mourning period is to end Thursday. No foreign guests are to be allowed to attend the funeral, although South Korea permitted two delegations to visit the North on Monday and extend their condolences.

They were led by Lee Hee Ho, the widow of former South Korean president Kim Dae Jung, who implemented the so-called Sunshine Policy with North Korea, and Hyun Jeong Eun, chairwoman of the Hyundai Group, which has led the South's business ties with the North.

South Korea and China are closely watching the power transfer taking place in Pyongyang.

South Korean Vice Foreign Minister Park Suk Hwan and his Chinese counterpart, Zhang Zhijun, agreed at talks on Tuesday that peace and stability on the Korean peninsula were priorities, a Seoul spokesman said.

Inter-Korean ties have been strained since conservative South Korean President Lee Myung Bak took office in 2008. Since then, North Korea has conducted its second nuclear test, withdrew from talks aimed at ending its nuclear weapons programme, was accused of sinking a South Korean warship and bombarded a South Korean border island with artillery.