SEOUL - SOUTH Korea's president said North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, who was thought to have suffered a stroke in August, was still in control of his communist state, according to an interview published on Wednesday.

US and South Korean intelligence officials said last month that Mr Kim suffered a major health setback, which raised questions about succession in Asia's only communist dynasty and who was making decisions concerning its nuclear arms programme.

'There has been a lot of speculation with no clear indication about Kim Jong Il's whereabouts, but I do not believe there are any changes in North Korea because of Kim's health,' President Lee Myung Bak said in an interview with the French daily Le Figaro.

'I think North Korea is still being run as usual with Chairman Kim Jong Il at the centre,' he said, according to a transcript of the interview conducted at the weekend and provided by South Korea's presidential Blue House on Wednesday.

Earlier this month, North Korea's official media for the first time in about 50 days said that Mr Kim had made public appearances, attending a soccer match and then inspecting a women's military unit.

But experts in South Korea said pictures the North released of Mr Kim with the women soldiers were likely taken several months ago, and before he is thought to have taken ill, which sparked more speculation about the reclusive leader's health.

Mr Lee said North Korea, which tested a nuclear device two years ago, is 'technologically capable of producing nuclear weapons,' and called on it to live up to a disarmament-for-aid deal it reached with five global powers.

Earlier this month, North Korea agreed to resume taking apart its plant that produces fissile material for weapons as a part of that deal after the United States removed destitute Pyongyang from a terrorism blacklist and scrapped some trade sanctions. -- REUTERS