North Korean leader Kim Jong-il issued a special order banning all talk of power succession in the communist country, a news report said yesterday.
However, the intelligence community has questioned the report's credibility.
"Enemies are speaking ill of us by raising things such as father-to-son power succession," Kim said in a recent meeting with his top aides, according to South Korea's Yonhap news agency, which cited unidentified sources.
The question of who will take over after the 63-year-old Kim has been open to speculation since he succeeded his father Kim Il-sung in 1994, creating the world's first and so-far only communist dynasty.
Rumors have swirled in recent months that Kim was about to nominate a successor, with the focus on one of his three sons.
Last month, there was a report that one son, Kim Jong-chol, was at a banquet his father hosted for visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao (
Jong-chol, 24, and another son, Jong-un, 21, are believed to have been born to the same mother, Ko Yong-hi.
Another son, 34-year-old Kim Jong-nam, was born from the leader's unofficial relationship with actress Sung Hae-rim, who died in Moscow several years ago.
Little is known about Jong-chol, except that he studied in Switzerland and is a big fan of US professional basketball.
Jong-nam had long been considered a favorite to succeed his father -- but experts say he spoiled his chances by embarrassing Pyongyang in 2001, when he was caught trying to enter Japan on a fake passport.
He told Japanese officials he wanted to visit Tokyo Disneyland.
According to Yonhap, Kim Jong-il instructed his aides to impose strict rules to keep people from mentioning his sons or a possible successor by pointing out concerns that a second hereditary succession would tarnish his image and his father's -- and would make North Korea a laughing stock in the international community -- Yonhap said.
The leader also ordered a halt to using honorific titles for Ko Yong-hi, Kim's purported official wife who died last year, and suspend campaigns to glorify her, Yonhap said.
In recent years, Ko has been referred to as "respected mother" and "great woman" in the North -- descriptions seen by many analysts as signs of the North's move to lay the groundwork for a hereditary succession.
Kim Jong-il has also ordered the ruling Workers' Party to ferret out those who spread false rumors about succession or speak about his family, and to punish offenders with a maximum sentence of life in prison, Yonhap said.
However, a South Korean intelligence official said he hadn't heard about the alleged order.
"It is strange for the North to issue such order at a time when things are calm inside the North [over possible power succession]," the official told reporters. He spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of his work.
He said he'd heard from Chinese sources who recently met senior North Korean officials that talk about succession had already been a taboo topic in the North.
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