Time Magazine says North Korea's recent appeasement gestures show that its leader Kim Jong-il is still very much in power and that he has recovered from a stroke he reportedly suffered a year ago.

In its recent edition, the U.S. magazine quoted a researcher at the Sejong Institute as saying that reports from some nongovernmental organizations operating in the North say that a public propaganda campaign promoting Jong-un, Kim’s third son, has ceased, signifying that the succession has reached a stable trajectory. The report said that Kim Jong-il is “back in the saddle” and whether that's a good thing or not to resolving the North’s nuclear standoff remains to be seen.

The weekly added that the revelation that the North has a uranium-enrichment program and its assertion that the program is in its last stage makes the next phase of diplomatic engagement that much more difficult.

Time noted that the communist state had released two detained American journalists and five South Koreans, sent envoys to the South for former President Kim Dae Jung's funeral, and lifted restrictions on border crossings.