North Korea military backs Kim succession plan

North Korea's powerful military has nominated the youngest son of leader Kim Jong-Il as a delegate to a historic ruling party meeting this week, a newspaper reported Monday.

The communist party conference scheduled to start Tuesday is widely expected to set the stage for an eventual power transfer from the ailing 68-year-old to his youngest son Jong-Un.

South Korea's Chosun Ilbo newspaper, quoting a North Korean source, said the army on August 25 had elected both father and son as delegates.

Only the leader's election has been made public, "but many senior officers are aware of Kim Jong-Un's election as well," it quoted the source as saying.

Seoul's National Intelligence Service said it could not confirm the report.

The conference will be the first major Workers' Party gathering since 1980, when Kim Jong-Il was publicly confirmed as eventual successor to his own father, the North's founding president Kim Il-Sung, who died in 1994.

It was originally scheduled for early September but postponed without explanation.

Delegates arrived in Pyongyang Sunday, the North's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said, in apparent confirmation the meeting will open on the rescheduled date.

State media in one of the world's most secretive countries has given no hint to the outside world of any succession moves.

But KCNA said last week the conference to elect the party's "supreme leadership body" will be a "historic" event.

Kim senior suffered a stroke two years ago and reportedly also has kidney problems, making the need to nominate a successor more pressing.

Some analysts believe the son is already actively involved in government.

Cheong Seong-Chang, of South Korea's Sejong Institute think-tank, said that since summer last year official reports had been forwarded to Kim Jong-Il via Jong-Un.

"As a result, as of the summer of 2010, Kim Jong-Un peddles influence, excluding in foreign affairs matters, on state affairs on a level similar to that of Kim Jong-Il," Cheong wrote in a recent article.

Analysts expect the Swiss-educated Jong-Un to be given an influential party post -- possibly membership of its guiding central committee -- at this week's meeting. But they are unsure whether the North will publicly announce this.

The ruling party's newspaper Rodong Sinmun heaped praise on its membership in the run-up to the meeting.

The "whole party is faithfully translating the intentions and determinations of the leader into realities in a do-or-die spirit", the paper said.

The conference will take place amid high regional tensions sparked by the deadly sinking of a South Korean warship in March.

The South, the United States and other nations say a North Korean torpedo was to blame.

Joint US-South Korean anti-submarine naval exercises designed to deter the North got under way Monday in the Yellow Sea.

"About 1,700 South Korean and US navy forces are involved in submarine detection training and high-level combat training," said a spokesman for Seoul's South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff.

About 10 ships in total plus surveillance planes are taking part in the five-day drill, which the North has denounced as a preparation for invasion.

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