Reports that portraits of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il had been removed were a US plot to overthrow the government and a "groundless fabrication", Xinhua news agency has quoted a North Korean official as saying.
Some diplomats in the North Korean capital and experts in the South Korea said this week portraits of Kim had been removed from some public places, starting as far back as August, in what may be a bid to soften the personality cult surrounding Kim.
"It didn't happen before, and will never happen," the North Korean Foreign Ministry official was quoted as saying today.
"The words are an intrigue that the United States and its attaching countries want to overthrow the DPRK," he added, referring to the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
"General Kim Jong-il is the fate of the Korean people and the DPRK's socialism, it is unimaginable that DPRK people and army can separate their fates from Kim Jong-il," he said.
"It is nothing but stupid and ridiculous acts just like trying to remove the sun from the sky."
The portrait reports caused jitters in South Korea's foreign exchange markets after rumours in the United States that they signalled a possible coup, but a US State Department spokesman said Washington saw nothing to "raise alarm bells".
North Korea has been mired in a two-year-old crisis over its nuclear weapons programmes, and there are fears that multilateral efforts to try to resolve the issue could be derailed if there were to be any changes in the North's secretive leadership.