Seoul - North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il has recovered enough from an apparent stroke and brain surgery to brush his teeth unaided, a South Korean government official said on Friday.
The disclosure that Kim underwent brain surgery last month for a stroke has heightened uncertainty in South Korea about the future of its nuclear-armed neighbour.
Government officials in Seoul have tended to stress that the 66-year-old is recovering fast and still in control. But media reports and a legislator speak of some degree of paralysis and irregular convulsions.
"He's recovered enough to brush his teeth by himself," a government official told the national news agency Yonhap on condition of anonymity.
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"However, the South Korean government is still closely watching Kim's health and other situations in North Korea in anticipation of any emergency there."
The official told Yonhap that while Kim is believed to have collapsed from a stroke, the possibility of some other kind of damage to blood vessels in the brain cannot be ruled out.
Legislator Chung Ui-Hwa told a radio programme that Kim is thought to have suffered some partial paralysis on one side.
Chosun Ilbo newspaper said Kim is suffering irregular convulsions and that Chinese authorities believe his long-term ability to govern will be impeded.
Although he is recovering, the convulsions prevented him appearing at a key parade marking North Korea's 60th anniversary on Tuesday, the paper quoted a diplomatic source based in Beijing as saying.
It said a senior Chinese official, who met Kim in the capital Pyongyang a few days before the anniversary, reported the symptoms to Chinese authorities, but said Kim's speech and mental abilities were unimpaired.
Chinese intelligence authorities think Kim's strength will decline drastically, considering that he must avoid stress and his activities will be restricted, the newspaper reported.
They predict his condition will impede his ability to govern in the long term, Chosun said.
South Korean officials say no power vacuum appears to exist at present in the secretive hardline communist state.
However, Defence Minister Lee Sang-Hee told parliament on Thursday that a South Korean military plan is being drawn up for any contingency.
President Lee Myung-Bak has told security ministers to prepare thoroughly for any changes in the North's political circumstances.
Kim's health has been the subject of intense speculation since he took over from his father, who died in 1994, in the communist world's only dynastic succession. He has not publicly nominated any successor.
His illness comes amid deadlock in a six-nation nuclear disarmament deal and fears that the North, which tested an atomic bomb in October 2006, intends to restart its programme.
Several analysts believe the powerful military may secure more power in any post-Kim era and take an even tougher stance on denuclearisation and cross-border relations.
"Another father-to-son succession would be impossible. A collective leadership by the military and communist party would come in," said legislator Chung.
"But it would be possible for Chairman Kim's eldest son or the second son to be put up as a figurehead leader."
The North has not reported on Kim's state of health and number two leader Kim Yong-Nam told Kyodo news agency this week there was "no problem."
The North's party newspaper Rodong Sinmun called Friday for unity around Kim, a message state media frequently give.
"The people, the party and the army must unite around the brain of revolution and devote all their struggles and moments of daily life to protecting and supporting the leader," it said.
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