In reaction to reports by Western media that portraits of the nation's leader had been removed, the state's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said these were based on rumor not fact. There were no past or future plans to touch the venerable portraits, it said, adding that such speculation was part of a strategy of psychological warfare conducted against the North by hostile forces including the United States.

The KCNA is an official medium used by North Korean authorities to present their positions to the outside world. Saturday's statement came 10 days after rumors first surfaced that Kim Jong-il's cult of personality was showing signs of weakness.

However, a Nov. 20 dispatch from Pyongyang run by the pro-North Korea Chosun Shinbo, published by the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, conflicted with the North's official line.

The newspaper reported that paintings of the North's leader had been removed from international venues such as the People's Palace of Culture, even quoting an official there who interpreted the move as an expression of devotion by Kim Jong-il to his late father and predecessor Kim Il-sung. Kim wished to be remembered as the eternal warrior on behalf of his father, the official said.

National Intelligence Service Director Ko Young-koo told the National Assembly's Intelligence Committee on Wednesday that a similar directive to remove portraits from places frequented by foreigners had been circulated in the North in the early 1990s . He also confirmed that portraits that had only recently hung in international venues were no longer on display.

The conflicting statements have thrown the North's official line into doubt and triggered further speculation as to why authorities would use the state media to backtrack on a decision they had already broadcast through an overseas mouthpiece in Japan.

A high-ranking government official said Sunday that the communist leadership was reacting to a string of Western media reports hinting at cracks in the tightly controlled regime - including rumors of an "anti-Kim Jong-il" movement in the North - with blocking maneuvers aimed at curbing the spread of the potentially damaging rumors.

He said the following KCNA statement supported such an interpretation: "This opinion war began with an impure attempt to slander the highest authorities in our leadership and even conjure up an impression as if we were experiencing some sort of internal problem".

(Kim In-gu, ginko@chosun.com )