North Korean leader Kim Jong-il on Friday met a senior Chinese Communist official in Pyongyang, China's Xinhua news agency said, in Kim's first reported meeting with a foreign dignitary since a suspected stroke in August.
Xinhua said Kim met Wang Jiarui, visiting head of the Chinese Communist Party's International Department. The brief report on Xinhua did not give any details of Kim's state of health.
Until now there have been no reported meetings with foreign visitors since Kim's suspected illness. Analysts have said that such a meeting would offer evidence that Kim is well enough to run Asia's only communist dynasty and make decisions about its nuclear arms program, reproted Reuters.
North Korea's state media have issued numerous reports in recent months saying Kim has visited army units, factories and farms. But there has been no proof of when the visits took place.
In the undated photos released by North Korea, Kim has been swaddled in padded coats, ski gloves and dark sunglasses. The North has not released video of Kim since the suspected illness leading to speculation in the South that he may still show the lingering effects of the stroke.
North Korea's official media has not yet reported on the meeting with Wang.
Kim has been conspicuously absent from major events in the past several months that he has attended before.
The most notable was a triumphal celebration in September to mark the anniversary of the state founded by his father Kim Il-sung, who died in 1994 after grooming his son for years to be his successor.
The two communist neighbors are celebrating 60 years since they established formal relations and have declared 2009 a "friendship year" between them, said a report on Wang's visit on the Party International Department's website (www.idcpc.org.cn).
China is a key source of aid and energy for its struggling neighbor.
Wang also told Premier Kim Yong-il that "broad common interests are the firm bond of Chinese-North Korean friendship," the department's report said.
It did not mention any remarks by Wang about North Korea's nuclear weapons program, which Beijing and other regional powers have been seeking to curtail.
But in words that may hint at Chinese frustration with the North's reluctance to implement a disarmament deal, Wang said: "Paying attention to and taking care of the other side's concerns is an important force in deepening the development of Chinese-North Korean relations."